<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Everything was cold and unfamiliar and I hated it immediately. I thought, this house is dead. Of course, that\u2019s why you chose it. This was your \u201cfresh start,\u201d as though we could peel off our old lives like layers of dead skin. Even the few boxes we\u2019d salvaged you hid away in the garage.<\/p>\n Still, I tried, John, I really did. You\u2019d worn me down with your deafening silences and your rigid refusal of my touch. I knew you wanted this non-existence. But you made it so hard. You held on so tightly to the emptiness I couldn\u2019t breathe. You painted the walls white, John, white! As though the barest splash of colour would be some kind of capitulation.<\/p>\n You had your refuge, of course. School started in September, two weeks after we moved in, and every day you escaped to the local high school to lecture listless students. But not me. You left me behind, swallowed by blank walls and stiff carpets. Did you know that I used to lie awake at night straining to hear creaks or sighs, the familiar sounds of a house settling in its foundations? But the house was silent. And it was hungry. I don\u2019t know how you didn\u2019t feel it; I could feel it all the time, yearning to be filled with something more than our emptiness. A house can\u2019t survive without any ghosts, John.<\/p>\n I tried feeding it just a little. I dug out that photograph you kept buried in your dresser–our first Christmas together, both of us kneeling stiffly in front of the tree–and placed it on the mantle above the fireplace. I picked some scilla siberica from our garden and arranged them in a vase on the kitchen table, remembering how we used to watch for their bright blue heads every spring. But you destroyed every attempt I made at bringing life into our house. You tore up the photo and you threw the flowers in the trash. Silently. Unfeeling.<\/p>\n So we continued with our non-living, but for a fleeting moment the house had tasted life, and it wanted more. Every day I felt its impatience grow, and every day I watched you recede further and further away. I was starting to realize that maybe I wasn\u2019t a part of your fresh start.<\/p>\n Finally, the house tired of waiting. You had retired to bed early after another silent dinner, and I was sitting alone in the living room pretending to read. I was restless, like a cat sensing an approaching storm.<\/p>\n \u201cNow,\u201d the house whispered, \u201cnow.\u201d<\/p>\n Somehow I was on my feet, compelled by a feeling I couldn\u2019t name. I let the house lead me. I followed its whispers upstairs, creeping silently down the bare hallway until I came to the door of the second bedroom. We hadn\u2019t opened that door since you first inspected the house last June. You were always careful to call it the extra storage space or the study if you were forced to refer to it at all. You didn\u2019t want to think about who might have lived in that room, if our lives had turned out differently.<\/p>\n \u201cHurry,\u201d the house urged. Hesitantly, I pushed the door open and at first I just saw more white walls and empty space. But then, the sun\u2019s fading rays caught our house and all at once the white walls and white floors were bathed in a shimmering sea of reds and oranges. The room burned with colour. I couldn\u2019t breathe, dazzled by this transformation. It was just a moment, then the sun set and the walls returned to their barren state, but I knew then what the house wanted me to do.<\/p>\n \u201cI will,\u201d I promised, laying my hand on the wall. \u201cI\u2019ll do it.\u201d<\/p>\n I got started as soon as you left for work the next day. The cold cement floor chilly against my bare feet, I rummaged through the boxes you had stashed in the garage until I found what I was looking for: the painting supplies from my old workshop. It took several trips to carry everything from the garage to the second bedroom, but by the time I was done I had a workable pile of brushes, paints, stencils, and pencils. It had been a long time since I had held a paintbrush in my hand; the last thing I had painted was the nursery. We had chosen a deep yellow, like sunrise.<\/p>\n I began with the walls. I painted them in deep swirling shades of red. Auburn, rust, and crimson: like flames licking around the edges of a campfire. I wanted to engulf the whole room in colour; I didn\u2019t want a single speck of white. I could feel the house spurring me on, desperate to satiate its appetite, and I thrived on its hunger. We were strange allies now, the house and I.<\/p>\n Over the next few weeks, that room became my escape from the sterility of the rest of the house. Walking into that room and seeing the fiery reds and oranges dancing on the walls I would feel my heart quicken, as though some part of me was flickering alive. But it still wasn\u2019t enough. The house wanted more than colours: it wanted life.<\/p>\n Did you sense a change, John? I think you did, though I was careful to keep my work hidden from you. I didn\u2019t try to bring in any more flowers or decorations now that I had my room. Still, you started to get a wary look in your eyes and your muscles were always tensed, as though you could feel the house fighting back against your numbing coldness.<\/p>\n I started to paint pictures overtop the walls. Scenes. Memories from our life. Our wedding, our first car (the one that kept breaking down), the streets of our old neighbourhood, even the pattern of our old bedspread. It had been years since I had painted so freely. Do you remember when we first met you told me you liked to watch me paint because it was like watching worlds come alive? Now, dipping my paintbrush into the colours on my palette, mixing the reds and yellows and blues, I felt like my breath was finally escaping from rasping, tortured lungs.<\/p>\n At first I just painted during the day. But before long I started sneaking out of our bedroom to paint feverishly through the night, compelled by the house\u2019s insistent need. We never discussed my nightly absences even though I knew you weren\u2019t sleeping well. Dark circles started to form under your eyes, and you performed your daily routines mechanically.<\/p>\n Still the house was not sated; dead memories weren\u2019t enough. So I didn\u2019t stop with the past: I kept moving into the future. I painted our lives as we had dreamt they would unfold. I painted her, in her crib, then riding a bike, then reading a book. I even painted him. I ran out of room: I started to paint over older drawings; I covered the ceiling and the back of the closets. Nothing went untouched.<\/p>\n I gave the house everything, and the house reciprocated.<\/p>\n The first time it happened I was sure I was dreaming. It was the middle of the night and I was on my knees adding some finishing touches to a drawing near the baseboards when I felt the whisper of a breath on my cheek. Just a touch of warmth, then nothing. It happened again the following night: I felt the rush of heat from another body brushing by. \u201cWho\u2019s there?\u201d I asked out loud. The house didn\u2019t answer, but from then on I was no longer alone in that room.<\/p>\n Do you understand, John? I had provided the house with ghosts, and now they were coming back to haunt us.<\/p>\n Was it your turn to lie awake at night, John? Did you hear the faint scampering of feet? The sudden escaped giggle? Did you put your hands over your ears to block out the creaks and groans that couldn\u2019t quite be explained? I wish I could have told you that there was no need to be frightened. I wish I could have shown that you couldn\u2019t block out the past, no matter how hard you tried. I wanted to tell you that your insistence on leaving everything behind was killing me. But you kept building that wall between us higher and higher. So all I could do was keep returning to that room, adding ghosts.<\/p>\n You fought back. To tell the truth, I was impressed with your tenacity. The more the house wakened, the more you tried to clamp down. You started to clean obsessively, scrubbing the white countertops and white tiles in the kitchen until they were scratched and your knuckles were bleeding. It was as though you thought you could scrub away your memories. But here\u2019s the thing, John, the house grew tired of its confinement. It wanted more than just one room: it wanted it all.<\/p>\n I tried to resist. I knew you weren\u2019t ready. But the house was insistent, a constant ache inside of me. And then you went away. A conference: no more than a weekend. I wanted to go with you, but you refused. You packed your suitcase grimly, methodically folding your faded shirts and pants, rejecting my touch.<\/p>\n The door slammed closed behind you.<\/p>\n \u201cNow,\u201d the house whispered. \u201cNow.\u201d<\/p>\n I listened. I walked up the stairs and opened the door to the second bedroom. Immediately I felt a surging forth.<\/p>\n \u201cNow,\u201d the house screamed. \u201cNow.\u201d<\/p>\n So I went to work. I painted everything: the barren walls, the cold tiles, even the ceiling. I didn\u2019t think, and I didn\u2019t stop. I added colour everywhere, splashes of red and orange, brilliant deep hues flickering over the sterile landscape. I was covered in paint, too, with scarlet streaks on my arms and face and flecks of paint in my hair.<\/p>\n I painted all day and through the night. I worked through my exhaustion, painting even when my hands started to shake and my vision blurred. I gave myself up to the house.<\/p>\n \u201cHere!\u201d I surrendered. \u201cTake it. It\u2019s all yours.\u201d<\/p>\n The house drank it in, satisfied at last. And I heard their feet louder than ever pattering through the hallways, their squeals of laughter, the clatter of toys. Spent, I lay down on the floor in the living room surrounded by a deluge of colour and listened.<\/p>\n When you walked through the door I watched you shatter. For a moment you stood frozen, the keys still in your hand, surveying your desecrated prison. Then all that rigid self-control you had maintained over the last twelve months abruptly thawed and you were frantically trying to erase my work. You didn\u2019t bother with a bucket, splashing the cleaning solution directly onto the walls and then scouring it with rags. When that failed you tried bleach, and finally in desperation you started scratching at the paint with your nails, your blood mingling with all the shades of red.<\/p>\n I was screaming and trying to pull you away, but you wrenched yourself from my grasp as though my touch was repulsive. Even though your nails were peeling away from your fingers as you clawed at the walls, you would have kept going if you hadn\u2019t heard the voices coming from upstairs. They were quiet, barely murmurs, but they cut through the room like jagged glass. The house was calling you, as it had called me. You struggled up the stairs, not caring that you were leaving bloody prints on the handrails, until you stood before the door of the second bedroom.<\/p>\n \u201cNow,\u201d the house demanded. \u201cNow.\u201d<\/p>\n Ever so slowly you turned the handle and swung open the door. All my drawings stood exposed. You walked into the centre of the room and turned around in a circle, engulfed by my paintings. And for the first time you really saw me.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy are you here?\u201d you asked in a whisper that was a scream. \u201cWhy did you come?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJohn,\u201d I begged. \u201cPlease. Don\u2019t block me out.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAre you punishing me?\u201d Your voice caught.<\/p>\n \u201cNo, John,\u201d I tried to explain. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to survive.\u201d<\/p>\n But you just stood there looking at your hands covered in blood and paint, surrounded by the dizzying mural of our lives reaching out to the past and to the future. Somehow I had hoped that when you finally saw my art you would look–really look, John. Then you would see that I had given life to everything we\u2019d talked about when we still believed in our dreams. But I knew now that for you all of this–these pictures, even me–it could never be anything but constant reminders of the life you would never have.<\/p>\n I understood you, John. But I can\u2019t forgive what you tried to do next. With the same terrible calm that you had the day you tore up the photo, you tried to light the house on fire.<\/p>\n You weren\u2019t there that day, John. It was terrible for you, I know, coming home to flashing lights and smoldering rubble. Faulty wiring, they said, not your fault. There\u2019s nothing you could have done, and they were right. And I know all you want to do is block everything out, but I was there, John, and I can\u2019t stop remembering. I was there when the smoke grew so heavy I couldn\u2019t breathe and I couldn\u2019t find my way to her; I was there when I smelled my flesh start to burn and felt him move inside me. I was there when I died.<\/p>\n I see it all the time. I can\u2019t stop painting the flames.<\/p>\n So I can\u2019t forgive the fact that you took your lighter from your pocket and held it to the curtains. Did you think that if you burned as well all your memories and pain would die with you?<\/p>\n You would have gone through with it, too, even though I begged you to stop. But then you saw them. I know you did. Standing next to me: the little girl in a red jacket and the young boy, staring back at you with your own brown eyes. The house had given them back to us, John.<\/p>\n I guess when you didn\u2019t show up for work several days in a row someone must have called the police. When they broke into the house they found you crouched in the corner of the second bedroom, still clawing feebly at its blank walls.<\/p>\n But you should be happy now, John. You\u2019ve got what you wanted: you\u2019re surrounded by white walls and white floors and everything is regulated and controlled. And I\u2019ve got the house. We\u2019re happy there, the children and me, although we wish you could have stayed. But I\u2019ll keep visiting you, John. I\u2019m not ever going away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Whitewash Everything was cold and unfamiliar and I hated it immediately. I thought, this house is dead. Of course, that\u2019s why you chose it. This was your \u201cfresh start,\u201d as though we could peel off our old lives like layers of dead skin. Even the few boxes we\u2019d salvaged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":763,"parent":148,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-180","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":680,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/180\/revisions\/680"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtls.ca\/issue13\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nBut you were too late. They began to visit me during the day as well: I would hear their gasps of breath, their light footfalls around the room while I worked. I started talking to them, although I wasn\u2019t sure if I was talking to them or to the house, or if there was any difference. Nothing of consequence: I would tell stories about when you and I first met, or about the plans we\u2019d made for our lives. I told these stories and I painted. After months of your cold silence it was a relief just to talk again.<\/p>\n