Word Count: 375
I had heard that she’d painted the walls red, deep red, which was all that would cover the stains that would bleed right through three, four coats of paint, even deep evergreen like the old firs that shaded the cottage. They would bleed like a freshly cut wound, or the scab picked before it was ripe. Blistering through, a shade every day, darker, deeper, eventually matching the original blood-red that spattered each room.
It made me laugh, when I heard that. It was so typical Mama; persistent, insistent, edging and pushing and squeezing all breath from your lungs.
We’d all left, Sadie, and Frieda, and Bobby, and me right before Daddy had died. I’d gone to New York and came back just for his funeral. Though Frieda and I keep in touch with newsletters at Christmas, I haven’t been back in seven years. Sadie’s got a house and a family somewhere out in Ohio, but Bobby and Frieda have their own places right there in town.
“She’s gone,” Frieda said on the phone. That was on Monday and I’d made reservations at a motel and packed a few things for the drive. Frieda said that I’d have to stay a few days to settle things up with legalities but I told her she could do what she wanted and I didn’t care what became of the house. Really, I didn’t think they could sell it at all. Maybe just raze it and level the ground.
But I did stay on a bit longer, after the service, after the last snickering neighbor had eaten the funeral feast over at Frieda’s and night flickered down. And I came back in the morning and sat with my siblings and none of us said it aloud. Finally Bobby got up from the table and said he’d go over alone. We made small talk as families who don’t really talk to each other must do to fill up the time.
He came back an hour later and I knew just what he’d say. “We’ll have to burn it down,” Bobby said, “just get rid of it.” He looked up and his eyes were all hollow and dark. His fingers twitched on the table. “It’s bleeding more than ever before.”
