Mom’s House
When we first got there I realized we were years, decades too late. The house was glutted, packed to the edges, bursting open like a rancid sausage. Old cereal boxes flew out the windows when the wind blew. Packages of toenail clippings pressed up against the instruction manuals for electronic equipment hopelessly buried in the mess. The living room was a catacomb. The bedroom was a solid cube of trash. All around the spills and piles stalked a gang of ugly-eyed cats.
Three days I cleaned that house, every moment vibrant with rage. I was sure I would not find a single loved thing. Even her photographs were devalued by their sheer number, the haphazard way our baby pictures were stacked up with photos of cars and unpleasant family acquaintances, inexplicable snapshots of feet. Then, atop an enormous pile of empty garbage bags, I found a little chair. I climbed up — the chair was shaky, but it held my weight. From my perch, I could look down on the peaks and valleys of trash, the cats fighting and rooting in the wreckage. I surveyed the river of foil, the cardboard peaks, the flaxen hills of twine. I saw then what that house had been — not a garbage heap, but a tiny, awful kingdom, with my mother at the throne.