Page 88 of Lost in Love
The clearance guys were climbing out of their van as she arrived, and with pleasantries and instructions given to clear everything, they set about their work.
Anna leaned against the wall and watched them as one by one they removed her memories from the house. A welcome distraction appeared in the doorway in the shape of Katherine.
“How’s it going?”
“Nearly done.”
“Sorry I took so long. I cleared out the bedside table, some drawers, and hanging space in the dressing room for you.”
“Thank you.” She kissed Katherine.
A loud cough took their attention to the guy in charge, who’d entered the room.
“We’re all done; everything was as agreed, so I’ll make the transfer as soon as I get back to the office. If you could sign this, please.” He handed over a clipboard; Anna gave it a cursory look and signed it.
“Thanks.”
He nodded and left.
“I’ll just do a last check before we go.”
Katherine nodded. “I’ll be here.”
Anna went upstairs and wandered around the empty rooms; the small sound she made echoed against the walls. In her old bedroom, she remembered the time she’d made a pass at another girl she liked only to be rejected and laughed at. She’d come home and cried her eyes out, curled up in the corner.
She ran her fingers over the wall next to where her bed had been. She felt the shape of a heart that she had etched into the wall when she got her first girlfriend. She had been desperate to mark the occasion somehow, and as her mum and dad didn’t know at the time that she was into girls, a small marking on the wall felt fitting. Neither her mum nor dad knew she had done it, or if they did, they had never said anything.
She made her way across the landing to her parents’ bedroom. She could visualise her mum in the bed, as she did every time she had entered it since, writhing in pain. Anna had been home that weekend and called the ambulance, knowing it wasn’t just indigestion. She’d never returned home, as she had been taken to the care home a week after her cancer diagnosis.
Trying to recall happier times, Anna took her mind back to jumping on their bed in the mornings and them both pretending to be asleep, only to jump at her and tickle her until she screamed.
Anna wiped her eyes and headed downstairs.
“Are you ready?” Katherine asked.
Anna shook her head. “I need to do one more thing.” She pressed her ear to the wall.
Katherine smiled at her. “What can you hear?”
“I can hear my mum shouting at my dad to turn the television off and come and sit at the table for his dinner.” Tears rolled from her eyes.
Katherine took her hand and squeezed it. “What else?”
“My dad telling me that if I run down the stairs and break my legs, I’m not to come running to him.” She laughed through the tears.
Katherine pulled her away from the wall. “Can you still hear it?”
Anna nodded and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
“I’m not saying voices aren’t absorbed into the walls, even science wouldn’t refute that, but they’re absorbed into people, too, and we can carry them everywhere we go. The voices have long gone from these walls, but they’re never gone from here.” Katherine lifted Anna’s hand and placed it on her chest. “Ready?”
Anna smiled. “Yes, I think I am.” She took one last look around the room as Katherine stepped outside. “Bye, Mum.” She wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, and followed Katherine outside.
“Okay?”
Anna shoved the key through the letterbox. “Yes, I am.”
Katherine held her hand out to Anna. “As one door closes, another opens.”
