House and Ghost

House sighed and shifted restlessly, it was lonely and empty now and the hardwood floors creaked in miserable solidarity. Ghost slid in and out of rooms, he liked it better when people were in them. He settled in House’s master bedroom, the room where he had taken his last breath almost fifty years ago surrounded by his own family- He’d always felt rather poorly about the whole sad ordeal.

House had been built just for Ghost and his family and they were the first family it ever had- back then House was a warm butter yellow. When Ghost died his family moved, selling House to a woman who wore only lavender and planted lavender all over House’s generous front and back yards and painted House accordingly. After the kindly lavender lady left, House had a few more families, the most recent painted House green with a dark red front door- it liked that.

But now House was empty, it missed it’s family with the mom and dad and the little boy who talked a lot and the teenage girl who never seemed to talk at all- House realized that it might have been that she just never got the chance to. They’d had a dog, too, a tiny thing that liked to think that she kept House safe. House missed the tickle of her paws across the floor, followed by the boy’s padded steps. They had left right before Christmas- the teenage girl had silently run her fingers across House’s numbers before getting into a truck packed with everything they owned. The dog sat on her lap.

A few days later a new family moved in. There were two women and a little girl with big eyes who clutched her favorite book and put it in her new room as if to mark it as her own. They were a first for House, but a family is a family and House loved having them. The first night they made a fire in the fireplace and House felt all warm and full again.

They sat in sleeping bags eating pizza and the blonde woman played with the little girl’s hair while the woman with long brown braids told her that with a yard this big, they could certainly get the puppy she’d been begging for. A puppy! House was overjoyed.

Ghost smiled from his perch in the corner of the dining room- he liked to know that even though he had died here there were still people living and fighting and laughing and making love in this house, that life was still happening here.

The next day men came and played loud, lively music while they filled House up with things and painted House’s door a bright tangerine. That night the girl with big eyes was read her favorite book and tucked into her new bed in her new room.

House was a Home again.