The Door to Dawn

Walking away from the house, today is not dissimilar from another, but then I am convinced I hear a click. The turning of a doorknob. I turn. The front door slowly swings open. Rust-covered hinges crack and pop with what seems like the intensity of fireworks on the Fourth of July. Spider webs tear—hang like curtains. A voice in my head says run, but I am frozen to the spot. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know what’s behind that door is not something I want to know. A gust of wind drops down from the trees above. It curls around my body, tussles my hair. Creaking, the door swings shut.

Life is not a movie. I have to live it. The house has invited me. I’m no trespasser. I’m going in. I dig my way through the weeds and discover a gate seemingly pulled opened by vines. I take this as a good sign. Another gust of wind and the door swings open again.

I expect something magical to happen when I step up onto the porch and enter the house. I’ve read about a lost ship in the Bermuda Triangle where the crew disappeared. The dining tables were set for an uneaten meal. The house offers no such mystery.

What I do see sickens me. The decay from outside had spread through the house like a cancer. But it’s just a house. A dream someone had to build. Now a museum preserving the past. Dead flies pile on every window seal.

This house, however hidden by the woods, is not unlike the suburban houses of my neighborhood. At some point it was a home. If I close my eyes I can hear the tinkle of silverware being set on a collapsed dining table. Pushed up against a wall a television set with bent rabbit ears and a cracked screen plays a John Wayne western. A sofa and an over-stuffed chair wait for an audience to be seated. The indent of a body remains in the over-stuffed chair. A bowl filled with the flakes of fallen plaster substitutes for popcorn. My dad wouldn’t be out of place here, it seems.

An empty picture frame hanging sideways outlines a crack running from the floor to the ceiling. Curled on the floor below there’s a molding print of a lone wolf gazing down on a snowbound village. Yellow sheets of newspaper and faded floral ribbons of wallpaper hang down the walls exposing multiple versions of the house. Green walls. Yellow walls. Paisley covered wallpaper. Wallpaper with a bronco-riding cowboy repeating to infinity. Each owner has left a history, seemingly yet to be discovered.

I can’t guess the day or year the final owners left and the home became just a house, but an old wind-up clock waiting to be brought back to life sits next to a sink overflowing with dusty dishes. The green glow-in-the-dark hands have stopped at 6:10. I tell myself this was the moment the house died.

I find a plastic baby tossed in a corner. It whines when I pick it up. I imagine a young girl running past me giggling then disappearing into a room down a hallway. The doll’s eyelids flutter open revealing white sockets. Repulsed, I throw it down. It thuds against the floor like a muffled laugh.

The room is empty. The only evidence that this was a child’s room is a series of colored pencil marks in the doorframe showing yearly measurements of height. Placing my finger on the top of my head I stand against the frame and measure myself. Marked with a red pencil I match a child who slept and played in this room on June 2, 1968. We are four feet eleven and one half.

At the end of the hall there is a closed door. Here the dust on the floor has been disturbed with a circular dance of bare footprints and boot scuffs. Behind me there is a cookie crumb trail of objects out of place. A yellow press-on nail leads to a gold bracelet, which leads to a tube of lipstick. I leave these breadcrumbs where they rest. If I get lost they will lead me home. From the entrance the evidence of my sneakers in the dust run in tandem with a larger set of boot prints.

I hate a closed door. I hate the question it begs—enter or not? I’ve learned that a closed door means DO NOT DISTURB. I resist an urge to knock. To whisper with fear, “Can I come in?”

I can’t stop now. The house has offered an invitation. Holding my breath, I turn a clear crystal doorknob faceted in the shape of a diamond. The hinges offer no resistance. The door opens with a gentle push.

My heart leaps. Across the room stands a boy, scared and shaking, out of place in the decay, but almost instantly I realize that it’s only the ghostly reflection of myself in a large mirror resting on a fireplace mantle. The cracked glass warps the reflection. The silver backing is eaten away by a fungus. Its amber hue offers an antique, funhouse view of reality. Framed in the mirror, like an old photo, I feel like I am now part of the house.

The decay the mirror reflects expresses something strangely feminine. The wallpaper is a floral design of faded roses with green leafy vines covered with sharp thorns. A brass bed turned green with tarnish. Stalactites of rotting fabric hang from the mattress. Across the room there is a red velvet Victorian sofa with a camel back hump in the middle. A dress lies across it.

I turn away from the amber reflection. The dress is new—a soft pastel yellow with a lace collar with little daises sewn into it. Reclining casually, it looks inhabited by a ghost pausing for a moment of peace. The left sleeve, folded over at the elbow, falls on the armrest. The skirt of the dress cascades across the sofa towards the floor.

Matching the dress, a yellow pair of patent leather, high-heeled shoes are lined up waiting for someone to slip in their feet. Any moment, I expect, the dress will get up and glide across the room.

The right sleeve points toward the floor. My eyes follow an unseen hand to a haphazardly folded rug. It rests at the center of a rectangle of bare wood untouched by the dust. Kneeling down, I grip the tattered edges of the carpet and pull it apart. A puff of dust exhales into the air like a secret never told. My muscles lock in a convulsion of fear. I cannot breathe. I remember the red pencil mark height in the bedroom doorframe. I am a kid. A twelve-year-old. I am alone and far from home.

Trapped in the rug is the tightly curled body of a woman. I remember in school seeing a projected time-lapse image of a flower unfolding. Arms and legs stretch and release. Tightly gripped fists relax. Like leaves falling in the forest her hands float gently to the ground. There is no life in this gesture. It is an escape from confinement.

She is nude, exposed. Her panties are pulled down to her ankles. Her bra is twisted, revealing her breast. Embarrassed, I look away.

The mirror reflects our truth. She is here. I am standing over her. We are together. I am here because she is here.

The hairs on my neck rise. Goosebumps crawl across my arms. Who brought her here and when are they returning? My embarrassment is overtaken by a sense of urgency. A single word curls in my mind like a dark thought—escape.

I touch her leg. She is warm. Aren’t the dead supposed to be cold? Maybe she’s alive. I shake her body. “Ma’am, wake up! We gotta get out of here!”

She doesn’t move.

Gingerly stepping over her body, I remember a warning, an old childish superstition. Like—don’t step on a crack or you’ll break your mother’s back—but darker. A grizzled old caretaker points at a tombstone with an arthritic finger. He growls, “Never step over a grave, because the dead are never truly dead.” Soon enough, I will learn this truth.

Dirty blond hair covers her face like a death shroud. When I pull it back her eyes are closed. I slap her across the face. It works in the movies. Not here.

Then I do something that haunts me till this day. I peel open one of her eyelids. In that moment—that is the moment—I learn about death.

With her eyes closed there is hope. A chance of survival. She is alive. But her eye seems to hang in its socket. If I open the lid too wide, it will roll away. Burst veins cloud her eye red. The dilated iris is a pool of black water. It reflects no light. I drown in its unforgiving darkness.

This is death. This is my mother. This is my father. This is me someday. There is no return from this place. I repeat a phrase I say often.

“I’m sorry.”

The sentence and its sentiment leaps from me and crawl across the floor like a creature trying to find the nearest window to escape. I lift my index finger. Her eyelid slowly closes. The play is finished. The curtain falls. That’s all, folks, show’s over.

I know what I have to do. I can’t save her life, but maybe I can save her death. The house wanted me to find her. She is like the cars, the bike, all the memories that make up the house. She must be protected.

I feel no childlike shame in touching her. I am an Egyptian Priest mummifying his Queen for the next life. I am a mortician bringing a body back to some semblance of living. I’m a magician pulling the saws away to restore my assistant’s segmented torso.

Her panties are a translucent cloud of smoke wrapped around her ankles. Using my thumbs and index fingers like crab claws I slide them up and over her knees. The bristles of her shaved legs brush against my hands. Her breast is soft and fleshy to the touch when I cover it with her bra.

Her panty hose is missing. I find it hidden in her hair. It is wrapped around her neck tight as a hangman’s noose. I should be afraid, but I am not. I know what I am doing.

Untangling the hose from her neck, I look at the dress, the perfectly set shoes. I can make her as she was.

I coo sympathy bubbles off the tip of my tongue as if I am speaking to a three-year-old with a skinned a knee. “Don’t be afraid. I’ll take care of you. Let’s get you cleaned up.” Somehow these words make everything normal.

I pull the hose over her legs and place the shoes on her feet. I discover a long continuous cut of the fabric right down the middle of her dress. It is a cut of surgical precession. Swift and accurate. Purposeful. No fraying. No ripping. I can only lay it like a blanket over her body.

I brush back the hair from her face. I whisper into her ear.

“Don’t open your eyes or you’ll be dead.”

I feel pride in what I have done. She is alive again. I lay down next to her and kiss her cheek knowing full well this is a useless comfort.

A board creaks somewhere in the house. Whoever did this could be back. Or maybe never left. I feel suddenly like I am being watched.

The sun sets through a window. The woman’s pale skin glows in the golden light.

“Don’t be afraid. I’ll be back,” I say aloud to her, to myself, and to whoever might be listening.