TALES OF TERROR

The Linen Closet

 You ever have moments that you blip out completely? As if your brain can bother to remember something only so often, so it's shoved into the depths of your memory? But something always seems to unleash it.

I'd forgotten the house on 12 Dahlia Road, in the little town of Mary Esther, Florida.

Though, "forgotten" isn't altogether the right word here, because the truth is, I'd never really forget.

The things I'm about to tell you are completely true, in which even my family can attest to. Not one to be fictitious or exaggerating, I will tell you this story in its entirety. Names and places, however, have been changed to protect those that have witnessed it.

My husband passed away when I'd been pregnant with my daughter. On his way home from work one evening, he'd been T-boned by a drunk driver and had slid peacefully into a coma while on site. He'd simply never woken up.

During my mourning, I'd stayed with my parents until our daughter, Callie, was born.

She was, I want to say, nine months old when I'd been feeding her breakfast in the small kitchen one morning.

Her high chair was wedged between the table and the wall as best I could manage while still allowing room for movement in the little dining area.

My father hadn't been able to squeeze through the gap and, I guess, that had been the snapping point.

"Lori," he sighed, setting his coffee mug on the table heavily. Coffee sloshed over the rim and stained the table's scratched and marred surface. "Katherine," my mom," and I have been talking for a while now, and we'd like to give you the other house."

A little backstory here; when I'd been eleven, we'd moved shortly after my grandfather had passed, and into my grandmother's house two cities over. My father had felt she needed someone to look after her in her age, and we hadn't bothered to sell the other house.

Instead, we'd rent it out and save the extra money for emergencies. Occasionally, we'd lent it to children of friends, or a college graduate transitioning from school to the real world.

It was slightly damaged from over the years, but it was my childhood home. I was more than happy to raise my daughter in the house that had shaped me as a child.

It wasn't as if I didn't enjoy my family or didn't love them enough. The memories I had after Kevin's death were full of warm comfort and patience.

My parents were wonderful, and had made a point to make sure I never felt as if I inconvenienced them in anyway.

Looking back on it, I think they were a little sad I was taking their only daughter and granddaughter from their home, but they also understood my need for independence again. I needed my own home, my own space. Something in which I could carve out "MINE!" in the world, in big, bold letters.

And the house in Mary Esther seemed like a perfect opportunity.

It had taken almost a week to ready the house just to move in. Luckily, friends, family, and neighbors seemed to crawl out of the woodwork to help.

They'd installed a new garage door, a working dishwasher, helped fix the leaky roof. They'd even repaired the damages a previous tenant's dog had wrecked.

The dog must've been a massive thing because it had broken a sliding glass bathtub door, shredded through cabinets, and taken huge chunks out of the hallway's carpet.

In the end, we couldn't save the floor and ripped it out. We'd placed down linoleum tile that looked like faux wood flooring, but much cheaper.