Chapter 10A house wasn’t a house until somebody occupied it.
As I walked through the front door of my parents’ home, I was greeted with an unbearable silence. It felt alien, strange, as if I had stepped into somebody else’s life. Then it all changed, hearing the ghostly voice of my mother telling me to take my shoes off at the door before coming inside.
“I just vacuumed,” she yelled from the kitchen.
“Yes, Mother,” I said, hearing the fifteen-year-old boy’s voice inside my head.
“Dinner will be ready in an hour,” she said. “Go clean up.”
I walked through the hall to the kitchen. The room was empty. No lights, only dark shadows coiling in the corner of the room. I stood in the doorway, alone, overcome with sadness. My shoulders shook, and I tasted salty tears on my tongue.
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