The House, by Carmina Eliason
I look for her in the house where her parents still live. My chest tightens as I approach. It’s a tract home built in 1991, Central Valley, California, wedged into a neighborhood of other 80’s style houses and landscaped lawns.
Haziness settles in my body as I walk to the door in the 100-degree heat, scalding pavement under my sandals. I grasp the well-used brassy handle and I’m flooded with tension and fear.
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She was violated as a teenager. Not by her family, but by her high school boyfriend. The walls of this house did not see the moments of impact, but the mirrors saw the bruises on her back, and the plastic buttons on the phone felt the hot tears on her cheek.
She built walls of shame and guilt and closed herself in. Her family didn’t know what was happening. They puzzled at her wearing heavy sweaters in the summer and her diminished lack of interest in social life. They summed it up to the moodiness of a teenager.
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The house is clean, tidy, freshly vacuumed, like always. The shades are closed to keep out the heat. It’s dark here. In every room, there are the framed photographs. I see her in them, but not really. It’s like looking at a ghost. Or maybe a shell.
The image of a toothy grinned toddler in a floral print dress. Brown wavy hair, green bright eyes.
The senior portrait with straightened hair, a tight smile. Glossy eyes staring out towards something the photographer told her to look at. Her thoughts barricaded under glass.
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I try to look for her in the bedroom, but her belongings aren’t there. The sky blue walls with white clouds are painted over. Her pink floral bedspread is gone, now used on a guest bed in a different room.
I give up looking. I put my bathing suit on and pad out to the pool, feet burning on rough pebbled cement. I float, belly down on a plastic raft, arms resting under my chin, kicking for a bit of momentum. I pause, let them hang in the cool water, and look at shadows and patterns of light on the pool floor.
And then, there she is.
Belly down, pink raft. Chin resting on folded arms, gazing into the same water. She’s drifting slowly, watching tiny petals glide across the water’s surface.
I don’t disturb her in this moment of freedom. She’s a teenager alone with her thoughts and I’m almost 40, with a mom’s body, stretch marks, chin hairs, tired eyes, a toddler in tow. I might have pink streaks in my hair now, but I’m an adult, and she doesn’t trust adults.
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Late at night when the house is quiet, she shoves a blanket under the door, hiding the light, pretending to be asleep.
She’s looking for someone in the novels she reads, in her hurried watercolor strokes, her poetry, her attempts at writing. She gazes out the window, across the dark roofs of other houses and hazy yellow streetlamps, looking for stars.
She’s looking for someone she can be completely herself with. Someone who can see her.
---
I’m impatient, but I will not rush this. We’ve been shut in here a long time. Deep unhealed wounds behind closed shades and the glass of framed photographs. I can’t save her. The damage is done.
But I’ve found her. And I can see her.
