When They Tell Me to Describe Home

By Asche Keegan

To an outsider, the beautiful brick house and the rose bushes where I spent my childhood would seem like a blessing and foretelling of an equally beautiful story within. Though the bricks are scuffed and worn and different colors, very few are cracked. The yard is mowed, and three rose bushes grow in front of the porch. They sway gently in the blustery winds of early spring. Though no professional gardening job, the place looks well-kept enough from the street—until you get closer and see the duck tape in the eaves where the birds and bees would nest, the orange yellow pumice meant to keep the insects out, and the brutally cracked and scuffed concrete running under the porch. Under the rosebushes is nothing but a tarp meant to keep the weeds out of the flowerbeds; there is only a small hole poked out for the bushes to grow in.

In my mind, I walk inside through the garage, as I always have, but on the other side of the laundry room Mom is waiting in her doorway, tirade ready on her lips. I stand there and listen as I always have, thoughts flying randomly, shoulders falling further and further under the weight of her abuse. The smell of soggy pizza pervades through the house from where my sister is cooking in the kitchen while she teaches my other sister how to spell the word, “multiplication,” and still I am here, listening in my mother’s doorway.

A realization strikes me as I picture the scene—I was never allowed to see the house on blustery spring mornings, and this entire process was solely an act created by the fanciful imaginings of my mind. With that the dream (or nightmare, you decide) fades away: the house, the pizza, my mother, and once more I am left in the empty universe of my mind. It is a sorry place, yet that is where my mind drifts when I think of home, and it is still better than wandering endlessly alone.