No Room For Doubt

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Though the house wasn’t especially large, no more stately than its neighbors on the block, my parents had been charmed by the vast yard dotted with dogwood and elms, and the honeysuckle-covered back fence. They scraped together every last dollar to get a mortgage on it when I was a toddler. My mother adored the screened-in upstairs sunporch and the enormous detached garage, which she promptly filled with chairs to be reupholstered, bed frames, umbrella stands and bric-a-brac which she used in her design business, leaving just a bit of room for the family’s old rakes, busted lawnmowers and tricycles. By the time I was old enough to explore, I refused to enter the cobwebby garage, nor could I be convinced to slide open the trap door which led to a mysterious attic. My older brother had reported seeing hideous spiders in both locations. But I was more curious than afraid when it came to my first solo expedition through a latched door off the kitchen into our basement. I enjoyed the solid sound my shoes made on the the hollow wooden steps, and I liked to sit on the landing where the staircase curved halfway down.

Our basement consisted of six musty-smelling rooms, intriguing and poorly lit. The furnace room was more intimidating than the others: a huge asbestos-covered inferno in the corner coughed and sputtered before falling deathly silent, then suddenly belched to life again. I ducked the severe gazes of the strangers in antique portrait frames which leaned against all the walls in stacks where my mother had placed her purchases. The eyes in the spooky old photographs seemed to follow me accusingly as I moved about the room.

Next door was an ancient bathroom, with rusted medicine cabinet, long clawfoot tub and a dish of dusty seashell guest soaps on the sink. Nearby was the small bedroom turned office—my mother’s drafting table and file cabinet took up most of the room now. My grandparents had lived there briefly when I was three, right before my grandfather had a heart attack. I retained only a vague impression of the grim old man who never spoke to me, but I vividly remembered a siren wailing to a halt in front of our house, paramedics racing down our basement steps, and one of them swearing loudly when they got the stretcher stuck attempting to navigate the curve of the staircase on the way back up.