Free Writes

The house smells like rain-soaked wood and old detergent, like it remembers every version of me that ever walked its halls. Morning light cuts through the blinds in thin stripes, and the dust floats inside them like it has nowhere else to go. I should be moving, coffee, keys, the usual, yet my body sits heavy, like the day is asking something I can't answer.

The hallway is too quiet. The floorboard by the third step creaks the same way it did when I was sixteen, sneaking back in, heart loud as a siren, telling myself I didn't care. My father's voice comes back, not as words but as pressure in my chest: You can't live like you won't be held accountable. I hated him for that. I hate him for being right.

In the kitchen, the kettle hisses like a warning. Steam lifts and disappears. That's what time does, rises, vanishes, leaves only the wet mark. I stare at the mug with the chipped rim and remember buying it when I still believed objects could save you. As if a new cup could mean a new life.

I walk past the closed door at the end of the hall. I don't look at it. I look at everything except it. Because behind it is the room I kept the same, the bed tight, the curtains drawn, the air sealed. The room where my mother still almost exists if I don't disturb it. The day after the funeral, the house was full of casseroles and quiet voices, and then the door shut and everyone left, and the silence was so complete I thought it might swallow me whole. I promised myself I would keep something. I did. I kept too much.

My hand finds the doorknob now, like it's acting on its own. Cold metal. A small shock. The door opens with a soft sound, obedient as always. Dust. Faded fabric. The photograph on the dresser staring back like proof that the past does not end, it just waits.

I stand in the doorway and think: I am not brave. I am just tired of running in my own head.

The house holds my breath. Outside, the maple drips once, twice, steady as a clock. And for a second the present doesn't feel like punishment. It feels like a room I might step into, if I let myself.

The church basement smells like burnt coffee and floor cleaner, and the folding chairs scrape the tile like the room is restless. The casket sits under bright lights, too formal for a place this plain. The town has brought its best manners and its smallest voices, like grief has rules here.

I stand by the long table with a paper cup just to keep my hands busy. Someone has covered it with a plastic cloth printed with faded flowers, and the pattern repeats so much it starts to feel like a warning: same, same, same. People drift past in pairs, talking low, heads tilted together as if they are sharing something important.

Then I hear my name, not said to me but said about me. "She's always had ideas," a woman murmurs, like it is a flaw dressed up as a compliment. "I heard she wants to leave." A small laugh follows. "We'll see." Heat crawls up my neck, that familiar feeling of being held in place by other people's expectations. Not a hand, not a threat, just the quiet certainty that the town gets the final word.

A man stands to speak about the dead sculptor, calling him "one of ours" now, proud and easy, as if the town did not spend years mocking what it could not understand. He says the word talent like it is something the town discovered, not something it ignored. Everyone nods like agreement is the correct posture, like the story has already been decided and all that is left is to repeat it neatly.

Someone presses a cookie into my hand and tells me to eat, as if obedience is comfort. I take a bite anyway, dry sweetness turning to paste, while my mind keeps circling the same thought: if I stay, they will call it loyalty, if I leave, they will call it arrogance, either way, they get to name me. It is strange how a place can love you most when you are small enough to fit inside its idea of you.

When the prayer starts and heads bow, the room goes quiet enough for that truth to ring clear. I look at the casket and think about what it means to come home only when you cannot argue back, only when you can be used as proof that the town produces something worth mentioning.

When the prayer ends and the chairs scrape again, conversation returns like a machine starting up. I set my cup down and walk toward the stairs. Nobody stops me. Nobody has to. The pressure is invisible, but it is there, pushing at my back like a hand that insists it is guiding you.

At the door, cold air hits my face, clean, blunt, honest. The wind does not care what they think, which is why I step outside anyway.

A gray morning, the sea flat as hammered lead, and the ship moving through it like a thought that cannot be stopped. The horizon held its steady line, stern as a law. I leaned on the rail and watched the water lift and fall, lift and fall, as if it breathed without needing us.

Below deck we carried a man we did not speak of. Not listed, not named. The mate called it “necessary,” the captain called it “none of our business,” and the crew, kept ignorant, kept cheerful. Yet the silence around that hidden berth felt heavier than any cargo. It followed me through the passages and into my sleep.

I went down at last with a lantern. The hold smelled of damp wood and old rope. In a narrow compartment behind canvas, I found him, awake on a pallet, wrists marked, face bruised. He watched me without asking for mercy, which made the scene worse. A pleading man is easier. You can deny him and call it firmness. This one offered me only his existence.

What is a sailor to do with such knowledge? If I speak, I break the ship’s order. If I stay silent, I join the cruelty. I could not even tell which choice was sin and which was duty, for duty itself can be a mask men wear over fear.

The mate called my name from above. The lantern swung. The man’s face slipped in and out of light like a truth that refuses to settle. I pulled the door nearly shut, leaving it unlatched, a thin gap for air and for doubt.

Back on deck the wind struck my cheeks cleanly, indifferent, and the sea went on, carrying us and our quiet bargain. I stood there a long time, feeling that the true storm was not in the weather but in the mind, where no compass points straight and every answer costs you something.