The Husk

My sweaty footprints trailed along the laminate wood floor—a runway to the living room. With the narrow awning windows slightly ajar, the cool evening air filtered in, pricking the hairs on the back of my neck as my feet sunk into the slightly damp, freshly shampooed carpet. I stared out the floor-to-ceiling windows—past a handmade sign scrawled onto the back of an Under Construction placard leaning against the alley wall that read, “Please don’t shit here.”

Along the horizon, a brilliantly blue swath beneath a darkening cloud bank highlighted the city skyline, and as I pressed my face against the window glass, I could just make out the Space Needle. I imagined the view was comparable from the deck I’d constructed almost a year prior as I settled into Gay Gardens—my enthusiasm for what was to come in the little cottage fueling all sorts of home improvement projects, helping distract me from the reminders of how I’d ended up its lone steward.

I soaked in the view and demolished a walnut-Nutella roll and then a homemade fruit bar from the farmers market, the berries fresh and bursting with flavor. I dragged over the only chair in the apartment and unfurled into it, extending my legs out into the potted plant forest at my feet.

Dusting remnant crumbs off my jeans, I started unpacking the fourth carload of belongings I’d brought over, marveling at the bags’ random contents: a cheese grater, a music box,  an assortment of shower products. Slowly, methodically, I began piecing together where things would go—envisioning the space gradually filling with furniture and plants.

Aside from the apartment’s patent emptiness, a few other things to which I’d grown accustomed were noticeably absent:  the caustically frigid air, the musky smell of mold. Even without the heater on, the temperature hovered around 75 degrees—with the east-facing windows soaking in all the morning sun. My eyes weren’t agitated by allergies, and the semi-constant tinnitus from my cold-accosted Eustachian tubes was nearly gone; here, I wouldn’t have to wear ear muffs inside.

Sweat beaded on my forehead, and I stripped off my coat, tossing it into an empty corner. Light shifted behind me as clouds stampeded across the sky—my shadow dancing along the cream walls, a harbinger of this new chapter of movement and change. A storm began rolling in, its flurries fluttering down and melding with Seattle’s signature mist.

The thought of returning to Gay Gardens for another frigid, sleepless night made me shiver.

Moments later, slushy snow whipped tempest-like outside the immobile panes—the shrieking wind barely audible, the air inside heavy and warm, like a worn sweater.

I turned and faced my new nest.

This is where my life continues.

Gay Gardens was no longer my home; my time there was over.

***

With large expanses of its walls and floors liberated of art and rugs, Gay Gardens had become markedly colder than it’d been weeks before. Even the dankness that’d hit me like a ton of bricks when I’d initially toured the house had returned—like something in the fridge had just begun to rot.

From the last remaining area rug, JoJo eyed me suspiciously as she’d been doing all morning while I swooped in and out, ferrying off furniture and artwork. She splayed across the coarse, colorful fibers: laying claim to her protected island the way a child does with sofa cushions floating in a sea of imaginary lava.

Snow slowly clung to the budding trees out front as I muscled my entire memory foam top—complete with bedding—into my car like a bloated burrito, the sheet corners dragging along the dampened stairway. The sky began morphing into a dense, white mass. I raced back down, skittered into the bathroom, and began knocking everything out of the medicine cabinet and pulling baskets from under the sink. A few minutes later, nothing but the plunger remained.

I threw open the 70s-era fridge and loaded condensation-kissed dishes glutted with leftovers; foreseeing an exhausting final push for the evening, I’d have little effort to pull anything remotely nutritive together for dinner.

Before I knew it, the car was full again, and I was off. I had exactly an hour to unload everything before returning for my most precious cargo, and to convey two albatross-like pieces of furniture into their new owners’ waiting hands.

***

With 20 minutes to spare, I pulled back up to the house. Descending the stairs, I could feel exhaustion and fatigue slowly hugging my bones, cajoling me to stop.

Back inside, I listened to the heater rattle away as I flitted into the empty rooms, ensuring I’d snagged everything I needed for the next few days. The couple I’d be meeting to pick up the mid-century sofa and chair were running behind, which gave me a few moments to catch my breath.

I moved JoJo’s crate into the living room, tossing in a couple of her favorite toys. Knowing something was up, she scampered inside and disappeared beneath the layers of blankets.

I pulled the chair and sofa closer to the door, and wiped them down one last time. In moving the chair days before, I’d exposed a long-dead spider’s larder: drained gnat corpses littering the chipped, white-painted floor beneath; husks of their former selves, they’d provided nourishment and life to their now absent consumer.

Apart from the pair, nearly 30 beautiful furniture pieces, along with hundreds of pieces of Fiestaware and vintage tchotchkes, had waltzed out the door over the preceding month—their vacancies at first startling, then enlivening.

We really don’t need things to cultivate happiness.

Standing atop one of the only functional heating vents, I could feel the circulation in my feet picking up; after multiple trips of kicking my shoes on and off, my socks were hopelessly waterlogged. But there was something incredibly calming about standing there as the heat writhed around my toes, my back leaning into my leather love seat—knowing that in the span of an hour, JoJo and I would be somewhere else. Warm.

Minutes later, the couple arrived and carted away the furniture. And then I hurriedly gathered up JoJo, feeling as if we weren’t so much leaving as we were escaping—as if I were Sally Field, starring in Not Without My Doghter.

With JoJo crated and prepped, I did one last circuit through the house.

As I cut across the darkened living room, I left my hand outstretched, at the height where it’d have undulated along the sofa back—memories of its cold, stitched leather conjuring it back into being; my hand reaching for something that’d never return, like a ghost haunting a past life.

Wind howled outside, buffeting the clapboard. Warped by time and neglect, window sashes rocked in their tracks. In the tiny bathroom, I pressed my hand against the lone window’s painted sash—framing bubbled, frosted glass—remembering how relieved I was to apply the final coat of Pale Starlet. I could feel the air intruding through the splintered cracks, curling around it—reclaiming it. Willing me away.

I took a breath, stepped back, and let it go, watching the sash loll back and forth.

From the bathroom doorway, I could hear JoJo rustle impatiently. I floated back down the hallway, gathered her up, and turned back—the sashes’ thuds a slow, measured applause reverberating into the husk of Gay Gardens as I pulled the front door closed and whispered goodbye.