Flake

This house has always echoed. The walls are almost completely bare. We never invested in carpet.

Don’t ask me why my very minimalist and utilitarian father moved us into a Victorian manor. I’ve been trying to answer that question to myself for years.

When there’s nothing to suck up the sound, you hear everything. Every little footstep. Every chuckle, every sob, every heartbeat.

Eventually we all moved out, except for Mom and Dad. Then Mom died from her skin cancer a year ago and Dad refused to leave, even if the house was too big for him.

More chilling that the house reflecting the echoes of all those years, potentially, is how mom’s skin has never really left the house. She was always trying to keep it on, but it flaked off everywhere. Every time I’ve been to visit Dad, I’ve walked out with pieces of my mom caught in the fabric of my clothes, the strands of my hair.

We keep trying to get him to add to the house – pictures of our family, some small decorations. But he wants none of it.

He seems content to surround himself in the echoes of the house, the past, and the floating remains of mom’s dead skin.

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