Outed By A House

I’m convinced houses are like young children, complete with personalities, feelings and provocative behavior when they think they are being ignored.

It all started when I left my little house on the hill to live with my fiancé in another part of town. I came by to check on things but whenever I did, the place I loved just didn’t seem the same. It was almost as if, in a huff, feelings bruised, with an unwillingness to admit she missed me at all, she sat silently, arms folded, lower lip out, refusing to welcome or acknowledge my visit. I felt her unhappiness and responded by hurrrying about the stripped down and chilly rooms, gathering up what I came for, never lingering, and certainly not letting on that I felt guilty for being so neglectful. She settled into a pout as I’d lock the door behind me and I could feel her eyes boring into my back as I’d slink back to my car in the driveway.

When the snow came last December and the neighbor emailed pictures, (I’m just sure someone put her up to it) of at least 10” of snow surrounding my house, I spent an hour one way on a bus with tire chains just to visit. When I got there, the lower portion of the driveway and the walkway had been carefully and neatly shoveled. A dear dancing friend always comes by in snowstorms to dig me out. He did it even though he knew I wasn’t there, “in case you want to come and check on things.”

When I arrived she said, “There you are, finally! Where have you been? Your friend came. He cares about me more than you do!” I was chagrined, and after making the rounds and finding nothing amiss I promised to make it up to her by calling Jeff about the water in the basement. She shrugged, harrumphed and with one eyebrow arched, noted icily, “Oh yeah? Who will let him in, because I see you’re leaving again…”

In March the seemingly perfect solution to my guilt and neglect presented itself as my 22-year-old son needed to urgently escape a bad housing situation. When he called to tell me, I was so overcome with guilt about my vacant and badly neglected home that in a moment, I instantly parted company with every single, solitary logical-thinking-recovering-mother brain cell I’ve ever possessed and in the most unbelievably lunatic gesture to date…offered my sweet little cottage, rent free, for six months, to a single, 22-year-old-male in exchange for his promised, devoted, meticulous TLC of my neglected but precious home.

I KNOW! Don’t think I can’t hear you midlife mamas groaning! Where were you when I needed you?

So he moved in and it was as revolting as all you clucking mothers with shaking heads could have told me it would be. And…I did all the things that never work. I lectured, I pleaded, I cried, I complained, I drew up lengthy contracts and cleaning schedules promising dire consequences and to show I meant business…posted them to the refrigerator. My son feigned surprise at my “obvious over-reaction” and claimed, “What?” and “Where?” when I howled, “Would you look at that!” pointing at some grisly, unidentifiable contents in the kitchen sink. Then he’d calmly suggest that I might avoid such trauma by giving some warning before coming over so he had a little time to “tidy up” first.

Eventually he moved out. I came to see the last of him off. Like a friend who knows she’s been neglectful but is hoping you won’t notice, I chatted cheerily to the empty but dirty house about being so glad to be back home, and wasn’t she happy too? Silently she shrugged. Then I got busy. I paid 3 people for 4 hours to clean her up and bring her back. Then I moved back in and brought my new husband. I cheerily set about the business of business as usual, thinking I’d gotten by without paying too dearly, hoping she’d soon forget I’d ever left.

And then she sprung a leak in the shower…

And another one in the wall behind the bathroom sink…

And the now very dry basement sprung twin falls of rainwater where there never had been problems before…

And the furnace quit.

Much like a three-year old who holds it together all day at preschool among strangers and then collapses with sniffling relief and some amount of difficult behavior into his mother’s arms when she finally arrives to pick him up, realizing he is safe and with someone who loves him, my sweet little house in wracking sobs said… “I did my best while you were gone, and I tried even harder when you left me here with that stinky boy who never cleaned anything, but now you are home and I’m exhausted!”

Ashamed by this outing of my dastardly neglect, I set about the business of making amends. I called Jeff who fixed the leaks in the bathroom and cleaned out the clogged gutters that caused the twin falls in the basement. I called the furnace company who replaced a valve and filled the oil tank. I lit candles, and started a fire in the fireplace, and turned on some music, and made homemade soup, and filled the house with the sounds and smells of people coming home to stay. She smiled and wrapped her arms around us, seemingly with all sins forgiven…and then the power went out.

Story by Tracy Schiffmann

tracyschiffmann@comcast.net

Primetime Gals

www.primetimegals.com