“Just because your grandparents gave you the house, doesn’t mean you have to actually live in it. It’s old and would be doing everyone in that city a favor if it were torn down.”
I thump my head against the headrest, rolling my eyes upward and trying to find patience weaved into the stained roof of my car.
How did I manage to get ketchup up there?
“And just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean I can’t live in it,” I retort dryly.
My mother is a bitch. Plain and simple. She’s always had a chip on her shoulder, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out why.
“You’ll be living an hour from us! That will be incredibly inconvenient for you to come visit us, won’t it?”
Oh, how will I ever survive?
Pretty sure my gynecologist is an hour away, too, but I still make the effort to go see her once a year. And those visits are far more painful.
“Nope,” I reply, popping the P. I’m over this conversation. My patience lasts up to an entire sixty seconds talking to my mother. After that, I’m running on fumes and have no desire to put in any more effort to keep the conversation moving along.
If it’s not one thing, it’s the other. She always manages to find something to complain about. This time, it’s my choice to live in the house my grandparents gave to me. I grew up in this house, running the halls alongside the ghosts and baking cookies with Nana. I have fond memories here—memories I refuse to let go of just because Mom didn’t get along with Nana.
I never understood the tension between them, but as I got older and started to comprehend Mom’s snarkiness and underhanded insults for what they were, it made sense.
Nana always had a positive, sunny outlook on life, viewing the world through rose-colored glasses. She was always smiling and humming, while Mom is cursed with a perpetual scowl on her face and looking at life like her glasses got smashed when she was plunged out of Nana’s vagina. I don’t know why her personality never developed past that of a porcupine—she was never raised to be that way.
Growing up, my mom and dad had a house only a mile away from Parsons Manor. She could barely tolerate me, so I spent most of my childhood in this house. It wasn’t until I left for college that Mom moved out of town an hour away. When I quit college, I moved in with her until I got back on my feet and my writing career took off.
And when it did, I decided to travel around the country, never really settling on one place.
Nana died about a year ago, gifting me the house in her will, but my grief hindered me from moving into Parsons Manor. Until now.
Mom sighs again through the phone. “I just wish you had more ambition in life, instead of staying in the town you grew up in, sweetie. Do something more with your life than waste away in that house like your grandmother did. I don’t want you to become worthless like her.”
A snarl overtakes my face, fury tearing throughout my chest. “Hey, Mom?”
“Yes?”
“Fuck off.”
I hang up the phone, angrily smashing my finger into the screen until I hear the telltale chime that the call has ended.
How dare she speak of her own mother that way when she was nothing but loved and cherished? Nana certainly didn’t treat her the way she treats me, that’s for damn sure.
I rip a page from Mom’s book and let loose a dramatic sigh, turning to look out my side window. Said house stands tall, the tip of the black roof spearing through the gloomy clouds, looming over the vastly wooded area as if to say you shall fear me. Peering over my shoulder, the dense thicket of trees is no more inviting—its own shadows crawling from the overgrowth with outstretched claws.
I shiver, delighting in the ominous feeling radiating from this small portion of the cliff. It looks exactly as it did from my childhood, and it gives me no less of a thrill to peer into the infinite blackness.
Up here, you’re well and truly alone. Parsons Manor is a recluse house stationed on a cliffside overlooking the Bay. My driveway stretches a mile long through a heavily wooded area, the congregation of trees separating this house from the rest of the world.
Sometimes, Parsons Manor makes you feel like you’re on an entirely different planet, ostracized from civilization. The whole area has a menacing, sorrowful aura.
And I fucking love it.
The house has begun to decay, but it can be fixed up to look like new again with a little TLC. The black siding is fading to a gray and starting to peel away, and the black paint around the windows is chipping like cheap nail polish. I’ll have to hire someone to give the large front porch a facelift since it’s starting to sag on one side.
The lawn is long overdue for a haircut, the blades of grass nearly as tall as me, and the three acres of clearing bursting with weeds. I bet plenty of snakes have settled in nicely since the lawn has last been mowed.
Nana used to have to offset the house’s dark coloring with blooms of colorful flowers during the spring season. Hyacinths, primroses, violas and rhododendron.
And in autumn, sunflowers would be crawling up the sides of the house, the bright yellows and oranges in the petals a beautiful contrast against the black siding.