Stolen lines #1... For me...

"Ghosts definitely live here," I say.

I looked at the unfortunate young woman who had just bought her first house, a bright eyed graduate student, clearly intelligent, actually thinking this was a good idea. She stood in my, her, doorway, clutching my, her, house keys.

"Excuse me?" she said, disguising a double take, the way UVA girls tend to do.

"Ghosts definitely live here. It's true. My mother died here. Right up in the master bedroom, by that window," I motion to the left window on the third floor, "I'm just saying. Yep, pretty rough too, she went down swingin'. Well, enjoy! It's a great place!" My enthusiasm was genuine, mostly reveling at her repulsion as I skipped out of my threshold, and up to my seat in our moving van.

Her hair didn't seem so perfect anymore; she was unkempt and distressed, all at once aging twenty years. Her mouth was agape, revealing her lipstick line, some speckled on her teeth. This woman was going to be studying to teach elementary school at a snotty university, all the while scared shitless that she would be pulled to the underworld.

My brick house leaned backward it seemed, balancing without my weight in it. A townhouse cupped in a typical Virginia foothill, with a scent all its own; cigarettes and lemon inside, earth and damp daffodils outside.

My happinesses, my sorrows, my tragedies, defining moments, echoed in it's framework. I gained a lifelong friend, lost my dearest family member, and bent myself to fit an adult and adolescent all at once. This house taught me the art of duality.

"Ghosts definitely live here." I whisper under my breath.

I stole the first line of this post from You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, by Julia Phillips. This is apart of Grace's Law With Grace: My Stolen Lines #2 project.