The House
Don't talk to the house like that. Fiction by Maia Brown-Jackson
Disclaimer: Content warning for abuse and attempted suicide. Reader discretion is advised.
Anna clearly thought the old woman was crazy.
“Take care,” she had said, “take care of the house and it will take care of you.” (The old woman seemed, in that moment, more lucid than she had been in some time.)
“Alright,” she replied. But she didn’t reply in the tone of someone who believes or someone who understands. It didn’t matter. There was time.
The girl seemed young. At least, the house thought she was young. It was hard to tell with humans these days. Maybe it had always been hard to tell. Maybe it wasn’t clear what young meant. The other humans called her Anna, and the house accepted this.
Anna was taking the place of the old woman, who had once been referred to as Granny or Ma. No one had called her anything as of late. She had been alone for a long time. When she was younger, she had a different name, and she would walk through the house slowly, tracing her fingers on the whorls in the wood of the banister, delicately stepping along the fault lines on her toes.
“Hello,” she would say, “you wouldn’t believe how grey the sky is. It’s solid, like steel, like slate, just pushing down with all its greyness. I wish you could see it. Can you see it out the windows, maybe?”
The girl seemed young. At least, the house thought she was young. It was hard to tell with humans these days.
And she would wait, and she would understand, and she would follow up with, “Well, I suppose it’s hard to explain the concept of grey. Like if you took all the dirt in the world and made it the same and spread it out into a thin layer and it were stone and also air but you knew it was really just dirt? Does that make sense?”
And to the house it did.
Years ago she started eating her words. The house wasn’t sure what had happened, but she appeared a ghost of herself of late.
Anna didn’t talk to the house like that. She didn’t talk to the house at all. Sometimes she spoke to herself, occasionally to the plants as she watered them, offering them gentle encouragement. There were nights when she would scream and weep and the house wished that she could just know she wasn’t completely alone, but it was impossible.
If a house could sigh, this one would have done so many times over. Eventually, it decided on the plants. Its way in would be through the plants.
***
When Granny was young, before she was Granny, before she was even Ma, she was a dancer. The house loved it when she danced. Other people would criticize her for landing too loudly, for being too much matter and not enough air, but the house found it comforting. Not many people connected with it in that way. Not many people thought about how gravity drew them all together, tried to make an impact, and did so hard enough that it rang through the walls and caused restlessness.
Granny-before-she-was-Granny started bringing home a man. The house called him No, or sometimes Don’t. The house could smell it on him; these two words were his downfall and her downfall and the thing that would make him so, so angry. The house tried to encourage him away. It prickled itself into leaving splinters, it forced cold drafts through its windows, it blocked up the pipes when he wanted to shower. But No didn’t get angry at the house, because No could never hear the house. He got angry at Granny-before-she-was-Granny.
Granny-before-she-was-Granny got bigger, and then there was some new little human. Angel, Granny called it. No didn’t call it much of anything. Granny had stopped dancing when she got bigger, and the house thought she might start again, might teach Angel, or at least grab the tiny bundle in her arms and twirl her through the air so the house could truly meet her.
Angel grew bigger. Granny grew more still. No shifted the focus of his anger.
***
It was an accident, that’s what all the men in uniforms said when they arrived. The banister broke in just the right place, or the wrong one, the wind had blown the shards of glass just so—No didn’t have a chance of survival.
The house watched as Angel wept and wept and Granny held still as a stone. Motionless even when the men like little toys came and took Angel away after seeing fading bruises on pale flesh. Granny left for a while, too, but she came back.
“Thank you,” she said, and her voice was different than the voice of the girl she had been.
The house wanted to tell her that it was okay, that it would protect her, but it found it couldn’t talk to her any longer. It wasn’t her age; it had talked to people older than her. It wasn’t her grief; it was an old house, and had seen many things. But it couldn’t tell her any longer that if she brought in another man like No or Don’t it would do the same for her all over again. She just smiled sadly into the silence and patted the wall beside her. She knew there wouldn’t be a response.
***
Anna was quick to wake in the morning. She cleaned, nearly every day, alternating between the rooms. The house had never felt this bright or beautiful, but it worried, too. She didn’t seem happy as she cleaned. She seemed frantic. Her hands weren’t pale but red, and sometimes she inhaled the cleaning chemicals so strongly she would choke for minutes on end. But when they grew too strong, the house would ensure that a window opened nearby, that the scent was diluted.
The house wanted to tell her that it was okay, that it would protect her, but it found it couldn’t talk to her any longer.
The house worried about her. There was the time she forgot to turn off the oven, so it had to shut down the gas line itself as she sat there on the kitchen floor, staring into nothingness. That day was cold, but the house made sure to direct all the heat it could towards Anna, so eventually she fell asleep like that, leaning against a cabinet. When she awoke there was a strange look on her face, like she wanted to laugh and to cry and couldn’t manage either. Anna cleaned the stove thoroughly after that, but she didn’t use it again.
***
After No was gone, as Angel grew, as Granny went through her phase of life as “Ma,” she began to turn inward. The hollows beneath her eyes made her seem wan and bedeviled. She talked less and less, to the house, to Angel. It was a slow process, but by the time Angel had left with her own little bundle, by the time the house realized it would never see her again, Granny and the house didn’t communicate at all.
***
Then there was the time Anna fell asleep in her bath, slipping below the water line as it continued to pour. The house thought she would wake then, but her eyes stayed shut. So the house let the drain open, and the water shut off, until she was just lying naked and shivering in the porcelain tub, and the house coaxed the remaining heat into the bathroom. The next day she scrubbed the bathrooms, all of them until there wasn’t a speck of dirt left.
It wasn’t until Anna stood right where No had fallen, studying the repaired banister, that the house took more direct action.
A pot of irises crashed to the ground. Anna jumped at the sound, spinning around to see what could have caused it. But she was alone. Looking confused, she nonetheless retreated from the banister and set to collect the plants. The house had been careful not to damage the root system in the fall, though Anna seemed surprised they were still intact. “Little miracle,” she murmured. And she gently gathered up the larger clumps of earth and the irises and she took them together to put in a large, ceramic bowl. Then she cleaned all the shards of broken pottery and the rest of the dirt and replaced the irises in their beam of sunlight.
The house asked the irises for a favor: could they please bloom the biggest and brightest they ever had? It was for the girl who had saved them. And the irises agreed. Overnight they transformed, and when Anna came downstairs the next morning, her face split into one of the few grins the house had seen.
“Come on,” she said to a nearby planter of chrysanthemums, “let’s see what we can do for you.”
And over the next few days, the house watched with pride as each plant was carefully repotted, Anna’s hands grew dark with dirt, and the corners between the wall and the floor were no longer spotless. And Anna was less prone to accidents, and she began to leave the windows open, and the house wondered if it might talk to her.
***
“Anna!” Granny said. “What on earth have you done? You were meant to be keeping this clean but look at the state of things! There’s leaves all over the front hall.”
Anna took a step back from where she’d been going to embrace the older woman. “I—I’m sorry. I guess I hadn’t realized.”
Then she cleaned all the shards of broken pottery and the rest of the dirt and replaced the irises in their beam of sunlight.
“No will not be happy about this,” she said, worrying her thin lip between her teeth. “He’ll be home from work soon.”
Anna’s face contorted slightly. “He—you know he—it’s been years—” A deep sigh. She looked—resigned. “No isn’t—he’s not going to see this. It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay!” Granny shouted. “It’s his house, and we have to keep it clean!”
“Okay,” Anna said quietly, “okay. I’ll clean it. Why don’t you go lay down.”
The house wondered when Granny’s footsteps had gotten so faint. She was sure never to disturb anyone as she walked. But there was no joy in her movement, or in her face. Her expression reminded the house of No, of Don’t, of shouting that happened in the past. Anna cleaned the front hall very carefully, scrubbing the spaces between the tiles to make sure nothing remained. The house didn’t feel sparkling. It felt stripped bare.
It worried that night as Anna stood over the tub, as she slipped in. But she didn’t fall asleep and go under. She looked subdued, and the house asked the geraniums to grow extra large for her tomorrow.
“What are those?” Granny asked, pointing at the burnt umber flowers. “They’re hideous.”
“They’re flowers,” Anna replied quietly.
“I know they’re flowers, but they don’t belong here. This house isn’t for the living any longer, can’t you tell? It killed my husband. It’s a place of death.”
No, the house wanted to protest. It’s a place of life. It just stopped the man who was killing her, who was going to kill her child. Who apparently had killed her inside, enough, so that now she didn’t dance and didn’t speak to the house and she missed the man who caused the bruises to appear on pale flesh.
“Granny,” said Anna gently, “It’s a house. It can’t kill anyone. It was just an accident that he died.”
Granny laughed but her mouth was twisted down. “An accident? Look at what you’ve done! Broken pots, dirt, the gas line disconnected from the stove!”
No, the house wanted to protest, that was me. I was protecting her. But it didn’t need to, because as Granny spoke, Anna’s eyes grew wide.
“You’re wrong,” she said.
Granny stopped short. “What did you just say?”
“You’re wrong. This isn’t a place of death. This is a place of life. This is a place where flowers bloom and girls aren’t allowed to slip into the nothingness. This is a place that protects the living, Granny, why can’t you see that anymore?”
No, the house wanted to protest. It’s a place of life.
“It was a place for the living—for me. But since your mother left—just left me here, until she forced me into one of those places—it’s ruined now.” Granny shook her head. “You fool. I was a fool for believing. Only you can protect yourself. And if you can’t, no one else will do it for you. Your mother should have taught you better.” And she gathered herself up and tottered out the door.
Anna stood slowly and moved a hand to caress the geraniums. “My mother did teach me better. She taught me that mothers protect their daughters.” She looked around herself, at the floors and the walls and the ceiling, at the tiles and the flowers and the dirt. “I will take care of you,” she said.
“Thank you,” she said.
And the house gathered itself, and knew she understood as it told her, You’re welcome.
A born and bred New Yorker, Maia Brown-Jackson made the pragmatic decision to study literature at the University of Chicago; naturally followed by a series of odd jobs working in galleries and art museums, and running from one thing to the next until she found herself in ISIS-occupied Iraq working with Yazidi survivors of genocide. Maia was inspired to attend the Fletcher School for a Master’s in Law and Diplomacy and now works uncovering fraud and Taliban interventions in humanitarian aid meant for the people of Afghanistan. She recently published a poetry collection, And My Blood Sang.
Amazing.
Such a beautiful tale, uplifting, captivating.