Reclamation

A thin layer of dust covered everything in the room, motes floated in the stale air, even the flimsy curtains seemed tinged with gray-brown. The rocking chair in the corner was stagnant with disuse,
sitting in a ray of sunshine but reproachful. A long dead ivy, dry and used up with raspy looking parchment leaves, hung crookedly from a hook over an empty bookcase. The room reeked of musty memories and abandonment - a tiny heap of bones lay by the pantry door - even the mice had deserted.

My grandmother opened the old icebox door and made a small noise of disgust. We start here, she told me, holding a lavender scented handkerchief to her nose. The shelves held a crock of butter, several bottles of solidified milk and a ragged chunk of cheese, flaky and green with mold, sitting on a pretty china plate. She laid out a bucket of soapsuds and a pile of rags, a bottle of disinfectant that made my throat scratch and my eyes water, and a stiff wire brush. Scrub, she said firmly, Til it hurts. Aunt Vi and Aunt Pearl began methodically removing plates, cups, glasses and silverware from the cabinets, discarding what was too fractured to be saved, making neat piles of the rest. Nana gave the old wood stove a fierce stare, then pulled on her gloves and approached it fearlessly. My mother began washing windows and polishing them with handfuls of newspaper, dodging spider webs as she went. Both my brothers were assigned to the outside to gather and bag trash and debris. It took four days to clean and restore the house but when we were done, it had a welcoming sparkle and a fresh air smell - Nana threw open all the doors and windows and we sat on the veranda until dark, eating the cold chicken sandwiches and drinking the iced coffee Miss Hilda had thoughtfully provided. The next day, the Sullivan boys arrived with a pick up truck and hauled off trash and broken furniture, cardboard boxes of flood damaged books, piles of motheaten old clothes and faded pictures in cracked frames - my grandmother watched impassively as the litter of a lifetime was carted away.

Full of questions - who were we cleaning for, why, who had lived here - I trailed around after Nana like a curious puppy but time after time she shooed me away. Aunt Vi and Aunt Pearl were equally silent and my mother hushed me with a wicked, warning stare. But mysteries cry to be solved and finally I approached Sparrow, intently engaged in a checkers match with the schoolteacher and more than a little distracted by his losing streak. What old house? he demanded irritably, Girl, what are you going on about? Jimmy tripled jumped him and he cursed loudly enough to wake the old dog, Don't know nothin' about no old house, now git, I'm busy! The schoolteacher leaned back in his rickety caned chair and grinned, That's six out of seven, you old reprobate, do you concede? Sparrow growled another curse and gave the checkerboard a rough shove, sending checkers flying. Concede, my ass, he snapped, But I've had enough for one day.

There were no answers to be had anywhere else - both Uncle Shad and Uncle Willie ignored my questions, Miss Hilda told me a morality tale about keeping confidences, Miss Clara simply smiled and John Sullivan said that "Curiosity killed the cat". I couldn't imagine what secret would be this well guarded and had no idea what a cat had to do with anything. The warm days of summer passed and the mystery deepened and then it was September and time to leave.

The last time I was home, more than twenty years ago now, I discovered that woods and wild grass had reclaimed the property. There were breezes and songbirds but no sign of the house that had once so stood so ready, nothing but a fading memory of a secret I'd almost long forgotten.