And It Begins Like This by LaTanya McQueen

Author:LaTanya McQueen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: eBookIt.com
Published: 2020-08-03T00:00:00+00:00

The house I grew up in was a brick ranch-style home, the third one on a cul-de-sac. Shortly after my father bought it, he planted two Dogwood trees in the front yard. He cultivated a rose garden next to the front porch as a gift for my mother.

As part of their divorce settlement, my mother and I were allowed to stay in the house until I turned eighteen. Afterward, the house was sold and my mother moved an hour away to be closer to work.

“I don’t know why she left,” my father used to always ask. “She could have stayed in the house and I would have made the mortgage payments. She never had to leave.”

“That’s not how she always made it seem.”

“Well,” he trailed off, not wanting to finish. He did not want to talk badly about my mother now that she’s gone, now that she’s unable to clarify her version of the past.

“She probably didn’t want to stay in it anyway. The house was falling apart,” I said, letting him off the hook.

“Yeah, man that house had some problems,” my father then said, laughing. “The builders really cut corners with its construction. It was the first house I bought though.”

My father has the same nostalgia that I carry when I remember it, nostalgia that blinds me from remembering the settling foundation, the cracks in the walls and the broken chimney. I don’t think about the backyard deck that needed new paint or the piles of molding firewood that had attracted termites. We had a sinkhole in our backyard and every year despite our efforts it gained in depth and scope, and every time my father brings it up I still smile at the memory.

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