Home Again

There's hardly a day that goes by when I don't think back on that night five years ago. 

It was somewhere in the Autumn of 2019, a wet week, because I remember the puddles on the sidewalks, the cobblestone streets of my hometown glistening in the rain, a blue hue in the harsh light of the lampposts. It's an image that sticks with me even now, because I keep imagining her how she stood in the doorframe. She must've walked for ages through the night, just to knock at our door.

We had just finished our dinner. We ate pasta that night, I think. Me and my wife Laurie had stared each other down the dinner table, waiting for someone to make the first move to clean up the table and do the dishes.

This was our house now, at least we were renting, but that's not the point. We had just moved in together. Still in love, like love love, butterflies in stomach love, sparkles in the eyes kind of young love, when you'd shoot beams at each other from across the table and giggle at the slightest tickle of a bare foot. This was our house now. We'd received the key in September and this happened somewhere in October.

We had a friend over for dinner that night, and were planning to watch a movie together. The three of us stacked the dishes and took the pots and pans and put them in the dishwasher. We were just about to settle into the couch in front of the TV when there was a knock on the door.

At moments like that, me and my wife exchange the same confused and panicked look. We weren't expecting any more company. Who knocks on doors at this time of night? It must've been after 7 PM. The rain had just stopped, I was only sure of that after peeking through the curtains. I could just about see a shape standing in front of our door. In my mind I was picturing a salesman, a neighbor complaining about noises maybe or some poor volunteer going round houses collecting donations for research against cancer. It could've been anyone. Maybe a family member paying us a spontaneous visit, but at this hour? They would've texted ahead.

Our front door opened into a narrow little hallway with a door leading into the living room, and stairs leading to the bedrooms upstairs. It was a small old house, a little bit moldy and dark in the forgotten places, and the floors and doors creaked everywhere. It was a terraced house with thin walls through which you could hear the neighbors walk up and down the stairs and cough when they were sick. Standing in the little hallway, the heavy door opens inwards, making it even more cramped. I turned on the light and I opened the door.

In front of me stood a short, frail old woman. The more I think back, the less I remember of her. She was skinny and her old, spotted hands scared me. It was only later that we noticed the plastic band around her wrist.

"Hello," I said, I think. I just greeted her, in general, waiting politely for her response. I didn't know her. I had never seen her before in my life.

She said she was looking for her mother. Her mother lived here, you see. In this house.

I was at a loss for words, trying to think back to the previous owner of the house. The previous tenant had been my wife's sister, who had only lived there a couple of months before she'd met her now current husband and had moved out. Before that, it had been the landlord's daughter. She had decorated much of the interior, which we hardly changed anything about. She had moved in the furniture, most of which my wife's sister had bought, some of which she had replaced, but a lot of the interior had been renewed when my landlord had bought the house. Probably not as much as we would've liked, but still. Whoever owned the place before that? I had no idea.

My wife joined me in the small foyer. Our backs were pressed against the wall. Outside it was dark. In the light of our humble abode, stood the old woman, meekly smiling, faintly looking, searching, asking us about her mother.

I looked into the street behind her. It was empty. There was no-one else beside her. She was all alone.

We took her into the house and set her on the couch. I can't remember if we took her coat. I wouldn't have dared to ask, or would have dared stretched this old woman's arms to take her wet coat. When she sat on the couch, she had taken the cold with her. I quickly shut both doors.

The three of us stared at each other, not knowing what to do, but our first instinct was to call an emergency number. Clearly the woman wasn't sound of mind. Whenever we asked about where she'd come from, her answers would be vague, like she couldn't quite recall. There was a card in the inside of her coat and a band around her wrist with a number on it and address. My wife called the number. Her friend took the old woman's frail hands and held them tight for warmth, while they talked about her mother who apparently used to live here. In this house. Long, long ago.

There was something childlike about the woman. At this point in time, I had not yet lost my grandfather to dementia, had not yet seen the vacant expression in his eyes when he looked at me and saw a stranger. The little smile he gave when he thought he was in a completely different time, when all the people he used to know were still alive and well.

The whole encounter must've taken a few hours, but in my mind it took only moments for the police to arrive, and the ambulance, and the help services who gently helped the woman return to whatever place she escaped from. But I could tell, as we took turns keeping her company and holding her hand, it wasn't home.

This used to be her home.

There was a silence in the house when she was finally gone. I felt sad for the old woman, looking for her mother, who had probably been dead for decades. I hope she still had family to take care of her.

We later learned the facility she was staying at was quite a walk away. Maybe 20 minutes, through the dark and rain. She'd walked all that way and she still knew exactly where she was, sharp of spirit and sharp of mind, and she still knew exactly where she was going. To see her mother.

Now there was a love that never faded. Not even when memory did.

I don't believe in ghosts, but that night when I climbed up those stairs to our bedroom in this new old house, where so many people had slept before us, I did wonder.

I went to bed that night imagining her long sad walk into the night, and through the rain. Years later, now that we've moved out of that house, I still wonder: is she still there, wandering those dark cobblestone streets, looking for her mother?

As I pulled my blanket up to my neck, I looked at the shadows in the corner of the room. I wondered whether any ghost of her old mother was grateful there had been someone still there to open the door to her daughter.

So she could come back home one last time.