Winchester Words

Arriving your sphincter tightens, being where mother died and her abuser lives on. But then there is the cancer. Helping your sibling with her father’s hospital regime, whilst often wishing him dead instead of her, conflicts your innards, tying you in knots. The semi with magnolia and incongruous diamond-leaded windows looks the same and yet totally different. Its heart ripped out; you no longer belong there.

He opens the door onto fresh tracks in the hallway carpet. The snow of his psoriasis is missing. Frequent contract cleaners clear the drifts of dead skin now that the unpaid slave has died.

He looms in the doorway a frailer, milder version of the terror of your youth. He almost reaches out a scabbed hand but leaves it hanging, as you find you have yourself. Touching is beyond you both. Loathing, fear, guilt and pity make words hard to find. The conflicting emotions leave you crippled, a temporary social paralysis.

“Hello”

“Hello.”

“Come in. I need to find the letter”

 You both know this is pantomime. The hospital visit is the objective with as little social interaction as is possible. Following into the sitting room you suppress an internal gasp. The space is cleared and your mother with it. The many family photographs are gone, save two. Both your sister. He loves her: as do you, that is why you are there. You perch on the sofa edge, tensed, careful not to touch the cold leather where he has been. He sees you scanning the walls and you see him notice. You know that he senses your rising despair that not one image of your mother, his wife of fifty years, has survived the declutter.

He fetches a coat and paperwork. You breathe easier in his absence, pondering reasons for the clearance. A troubling thought occurs. This absence of familial encumberment, is it a preparation to replace your mother; a younger woman to whom to bequeath what remains of your mother’s estate? The final act in robbing you of your inheritance. Your heart twists in your chest, you stand, make the front door and anxiously wait to be out of the place. However, it’s the same pity that kept your mother there that explains your return, you too feel sorry for him.