only fireflies know
Joseph Harned
At home it is quiet most of the time. And sometimes it is silent. I visited mother and father today. Their house is away from the city in an almost-suburb. It is white with black shutters and a red door and two stories. It is made out of wood, which is rare. The front door complains when you open it and it is heavy.
I see that mother is alone and is looking out the window; or she is looking at the window. It is hard to tell if she is really looking at anything. Her hands are cupped around a cell phone and she is still in her chair. She hears me walk in but doesn’t turn to look. I press my palm against her back and she looks at me in the reflection of the window. Painted on the ceiling is gold light as it passes through a glass lampshade, and in the ray there is dust floating. “What are you doing, mom?”
“I am thinking.”
I pour myself a glass of water from the kitchen. It tastes better here than in the city, though it is the same water. It seems that everything but death moves slower. Even the water filling my cup takes its time.
“Vollie…”
“Yes mom?”
“I think this house is haunted.”
“Do you?”
“I do.”
I walk in and she is staring at the light on the ceiling. But it was not the light which brings her to remember the ghosts; it was the nights when it seemed wind whipped around the chimney and only their house was covered in debris and only their door swung so hard in the night that the pneumatics bent and it couldn’t close anymore. Well, she knows better than I. She has lived here longer.
“I am going to go talk with dad.”
She nods.
He is laying in bed and is watching the sunset through the slats of the window. He sleeps with only a thin blanket above him; he refuses to turn on the AC and it is too hot under the comforter. He can only see the edge of the sunset and the taint of the clouds but it is just enough. A fan hums from across the room.
“Vollie! Your mother isn’t wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“The house is haunted.”
“Oh.”
“Come here.”
In my clothes I lay down beside him. I feel bad about blocking the view of his sunset, but he has already closed his eyes, and it is already growing dark. He pushes a button beside the bed and the shutters close and it is black in the room.
“Look up. Do you remember these?”
I look at the ceiling and there are glowing green stars glued onto the stucco ceiling. “Of course I do.”
“We used to have the best times. Watching these.”
“We did. They were here when we moved.”
“They’ll be here for whoever moves in after us.”
“How long do you think it will take?”
In the faint, faint light I saw him grimace.
“A couple months.”
We were still and silent.
“Do I look sick?”
“No, you look fine.”
“I think that’s worse…………………You know, you were the best friend I ever had. And I was good to you, even when you probably didn’t deserve it. I would pick a book for you at the store, always a hardback one even if it was more expensive. You didn’t realize it, but when you read them in the living room I was watching. I was watching you read. I loved you so much. You can have all my books.”
“It’s too early to be thinking about that.”
“I was good and this is where it got me. God. What I wouldn’t give for a time machine.” “Everybody has their time.”
“I know. I don’t want this to be mine.”
“Dad
I think
Maybe
In three years
We will still be talking
Even if you’re not here.”
He begins to cry gently and it is hard to hear him cry and it is harder to feel his chest bouncing as he does so because monoliths don’t cry and for eighteen years he was a monolith. “Maybe.”
Outside it is almost night. The fireflies are dancing and it is cool and there is a light breeze. I sit on the steps of the front porch and listen to the cicadas. I turn back to the red door, the gold numbers on it. To the side of the door there is a bay of windows. I look through the windows. My mom has retired to her room and the first floor is dark, but something glows like a firefly tenfold. It moves around for a moment, stopping by the chair she sat in and the couch I sat on, lingering in our memories, before slipping upstairs. Its glow seeps warm under the door like a draft until it doesn’t, and the house is dark and silent again.