A life inside of a life inside of a home.
A black dog’s howl reverberates off stainless-steel refrigerator doors to bounce back into her speckled mouth—falsetto notes that glide between canine teeth. There is gentleness in warmth provided by a close-stranger’s blanket when asleep in their home.
Vibrant orange accents make themselves apparent throughout the house. I have never been a fan of orange until this October—the pumpkins in their garden, the guest bedroom sheets, and the zip-up sweatshirt I borrowed from their closet every day for the past five days (when I put it on, I look at myself in the mirror of their master bedroom and pretend to own the jacket as much as I pretend to own this house). I never want to leave.
I inhabit many lives every time I house sit.
I call the dogs in for dinner, and every time I do, I feel the words form like a mother’s love on the upside of my tongue. The dogs come, and when they do, I kiss, and kiss, and kiss the tops of their heads— here, I am torn.
The corners of their eyes glimpse in returned-love, but I know that their eyes peer through me, to the ambiguous destination of their true owners. I know the Mr. & Mrs. will return in due time, but the dogs long for the time that I will leave and their parents will come back through the door clouded by scents of stained sunscreen and digested margaritas.
If I pretend to live here long enough, will my destined departure postpone? No—never. A plane scheduled will always arrive, even if not on time. I imagine the skidding sound of rubber airplane tires atop the tarmac. Every time a plane lands (no matter what size) a layer of the wheels will always melt off. A gray apparition of burnt rubber is left behind to dance upwards into the sky. At night, I lay my head on the orange pillowcases and visualize their plane wheels melting—stuck onto tarmac and stuck onto seat—I wake in the morning to a text, they’ve begun their drive home.
I stand and look out, like a lighthouse, to cast attention on every looked-over corner of the home. I return Robert Hass and Annie Dillard to their rightful home on the bookshelf next to the orange couch. If home is like a space on a bookshelf, what is it to inhabit a home that is not your own?
There is tenderness in the use of someone else’s books—I am a ghost tracing fingertips along the corners of pages and piano keys—their books instruct me to play, as I am only a puppet playing someone else’s tune, singing someone else’s song. I am the opener to the main show, a method to keep the crowd of dogs interested, instead of the silence that creeps up in between floorboards.
I return the books to their shelf, the orange pillows to the orange bed, the wine glasses to the cabinet, the turtle to his tank, and the dogs to their same, blue, holding room. I hold my bag close to my torso.
(Here, my body is tight, I feel that I, too, squeeze between the floorboards…back into silence)
I pull the tiny doorknob until it clicks next to my left hip. I hear the dogs whine from the back of the house as I slip the golden key under the pristine mat. It takes only three solemn steps down the porch to become a ghost once more—this is purgatory, this is the in-between of all in-betweens, how to leave a life unknown to re-inhabit your own.
I take my time to leave. It is sometimes believed that the soul requires three more days to die, after the body has perished—when a person inhabits a home, the soul lives on in whispers and metronomic creaks between the floorboards—until the energy has returned back to the eternal house of life. I pick a dandelion from the front yard and whisper gently, goodbye. Each puffed frond carries in varying distances away from my breath. I can still faintly hear the black dog’s howl as I wish on each tuft in flight (I wish to finally go home).
Bridgette Brados will graduate from NAU in Spring 2020 with a degree in English and certificate in Creative Writing. You can probably find her reading under a tree somewhere on a sunny day.
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