The Old House

 The sky was shifting from burnt-orange to charcoal, clouds drifting lazily above the silent houses. Few people remained on the streets at this hour, having returned home from a long day of work. The only noise that permeated for miles was that of the crows calling out to one another from the rooftops.

Aria clutched the key in her hand, a rust-flecked piece of metal that had certainly seen better days. Its ornate handle was engraved with daisies and roses, just as she remembered from her childhood.

The young woman, about to leave her old apartment to move into a beautiful house across the city with her new husband, had been organising her things for the packers and movers. Old clothes and toys were donated to charity, broken items were thrown away, and everything else was placed into their appropriate boxes.

It was then that she had found the key she now held in her hands. She remembered her grandmother holding the very same one in her wrinkled fingers when Aria was a child, unlocking the door to her house after an outing to the market. The flowers on the door which matched the designs on the key, and her grandmother’s soft laugh like wind chimes, were both core parts of a childhood memory, now long gone, that had been reawakened by this old keepsake.

Grandma Lottie had since departed from this world, a smile on her face as she was surrounded by her children and grandchildren. She had left her money, jewelry, and other belongings to her family, but the key to her house had been given to Aria.

She’d forgotten about it, busy with college and then finding a job, and it had slipped her mind completely. But now that she held it in her hands once more, she felt the strange urge to visit that old house on Vine Avenue one more time.

Thus, she ended up on the deserted street, facing a house that looked much smaller than it did in her memories. But perhaps that was just the perspective change from growing up. After all, she was no longer the little girl who struggled to reach the doorknob.

It was a bit of a struggle to turn the key in the lock, but a bit of effort allowed it to move with a click. The knob, now at her abdomen, gave way more easily.

Aria watched with bated breath as the door creaked open, the fading painted flowers speaking of faded memories. The orange light from the setting sun slid out from behind her, and crept into the house for the first time in years.

The house looked nothing like her memories, yet it looked exactly the same.

It felt like no item had moved even an inch since the last time she had been there, nearly a decade and a half ago. The shoes were still left discarded haphazardly by the door, a coat thrown carelessly over the couch in the hall. However, the thick layer of dust and grime coating everything, the dark atmosphere from the lack of lighting, and the musty smell, all prevented her from feeling like she had simply travelled through time.

Aria’s heart was filled with mixed feelings. Regret over having neglected the one thing her grandmother had left to her, disappointment from reality differing from her memories, and even the grief that she thought she had overcome. Yet she felt nostalgic remembering the bittersweet memories, excited to see the lack of heavy damage, and love for the moments she had shared with her late grandmother within those very walls.

Dust filled the air every time her shoes landed on the floors, but she didn’t mind. She lifted her hands to an old photo frame left alone for so long on the mantle. The picture within it could barely be seen, but wiping the surface of the glass with her sleeve made it more visible.

It was a photo of Aria, her mother, and her grandmother, sitting on a bench at the local park. The place had since been torn down to build an apartment complex, but the women in the picture with ice-creams in their hands wouldn’t know that.

She smiled at the photo, before gently putting it back where it belonged.

Her grandmother wouldn’t have wanted for her house to be abandoned, waiting decades for someone to grace its halls. These rooms, once filled with love and laughter, felt incomplete now that everything was silent.

Well, wasn’t her good friend Barbara trying to set up a primary school? She couldn’t think of a more wonderful purpose for this old house, once more caring for young children, and being filled with even more happy memories.