Mumma's House

by Ike Hamill

  At least June hadn’t needed to travel. The others had dropped everything to return for the service.

  Henry came from the kitchen.

  “You must have a coffee grinder, right?”

  “It’s in the cupboard to the right of the sink,” June said.

  He disappeared again.

  June had stopped drinking coffee, but it suddenly sounded like a good idea. Maybe it would take away the headache that had plagued her all morning.

  She shut her eyes at the sound of the screen door. It would be Auggie, and he would want to…

  “We need to talk about this deed, June,” Auggie said.

  “I know,” June said with a sigh. “Does it have to be right now?”

  “Sooner the better. It kinda changes everything.”

  Her eyes were still closed. She heard the door again. That would be Jules.

  One of them sat down in the chair next to her.

  “I don’t understand how she did it,” Jules said.

  “I think we should simply take it as a gift and move ahead,” Auggie said.

  “But if we don’t know how she did it, won’t it come back and bite us in the ass later?”

  June heard footsteps from the kitchen. By the hesitant way the shoes moved across the carpet, June guessed that it was Deidra.

  When her cousin spoke, June knew that she was right.

  “Are we talking about the deed?” Deidra asked.

  “Yes,” Jules said. “Auggie wants to sell the place immediately. I’m afraid that we’ll get sued if the buyer figures out that the deed is forged.”

  There was a moment of silence that June broke with a sigh.

  “It’s not forged,” June said. “The deed has to be real, Allison just faked whatever signatures she needed to get it completely in her name. With Tommy and Travis gone, she must have figured out a way to get everything turned over to her.”

  “Why wouldn’t she tell us she was doing that?” Jules asked.

  “Because that would have made us complicit,” June said. “This way, it’s all free and clear. They didn’t have any heirs, so nobody is going to challenge the deed. Allison knew she was going to die, so she didn’t have any concern over committing the crime. Auggie is right—we take the gift and move on. The house is gone. We sell the land and move on.”

  “I agree,” Auggie said.

  “You don’t have to agree,” Deidra said.

  They all looked to her.

  “Technically, Mumma Jay makes the decision, right? I happen to agree, but we don’t have to agree, right?”

  “That’s true,” Jules said.

  Auggie nodded.

  “Will you handle the sale of the property, Auggie?” June asked. “You’re best at that kind of thing.”

  “Certainly,” he said.

  “Deidra and I will take care of distributing the things that Allison wanted us to keep. Jules, you’re in charge of the financials of her accounts, right?” June asked.

  Everyone agreed.

  Henry and Kate were talking and preparing lunch in the kitchen. Upstairs, the kids shouted and then feet ran across the floor.

  Silence had fallen on the four of them in the living room.

  Deidra folded her arms across her chest.

  “Why wouldn’t she tell us?”

  Jules looked at the floor.

  “You remember that time she slipped and had to go to the hospital?” Auggie asked.

  June smiled. She knew exactly why Auggie was bringing up this memory.

  “We all gave her a hard time and asked why she hadn’t told us,” Auggie said. “She said, ‘We would still be here, with you all gathered around, worrying. But if I had told you, there would have been all those hours of uncertainty first. Isn’t it better this way?’ It was selfish, but she didn’t want to deal with all of our sad faces for months. She was going to die either way.”

  “I feel like she robbed us of being able to prepare,” Jules said.

  “She could have dropped dead at any time,” June said. “It was her choice to face that alone.”

  “Can we not talk about this?” Deidra asked. “We have a plan, can we move on?”

  “I’m just trying to make sense of it,” Jules said.

  “There’s no sense to be made,” Deidra said. “And she asked us to remember her fondly not meditate about her death. It was one of the few instructions that she left for us.”

  “You’re right,” Jules said. He stood up and went back outside.

  Kate came in from the kitchen.

  “This is a lovely place, June, if I haven’t said so already, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out your oven.”

  June smiled and rose to go help.

  # # # #

  The kids took their plates out to the coffee table in the living room. The adults crowded around June’s kitchen table. Auggie was sitting in the desk chair that he brought over from the office. Henry was stuck in the corner.

  “Thank you all for coming,” June said. “It means a lot.”

  It wasn’t a prayer, but they all took that as the cue to start eating.

  “Have you made a decision about New Year’s Eve?” Deidra asked.

  “I thought I would leave it up to you guys,” June said. “I like the idea of rotating around, if everyone is up for it. We could do a year down at Auggie’s, then a year at your place.”

  “Hotels okay for my year?” Jules asked. “I don’t have a lot of space for guests.”

  “None of us has space for everyone,” Auggie said.

  “That’s true,” Henry said.

  “Well…” June said. They all looked to her. She finished chewing her bread and swallowed it down with a sip of wine before she continued. “I’m considering putting in a bid on the big house.”

  June saw their confusion and explained further.

  “This house used to be the guest house for the house on the corner over there. The one on the other side of the pond? I know the owner and she’s getting ready to move into assisted living. She said that she would let me make an offer on the place before she put it on the market. Based on what she said, she might accept something I could actually afford.”

  “That place is huge,” Auggie said.

  June nodded. “It’s too much house for me and Gus, but it might be too good a deal to pass up. Besides, if the wrong people moved in there, it might make living here a nightmare. If they were bad neighbors, they would be way too close for comfort.”

  “Well, congratulations in advance then,” Henry said.

  “Thank you,” June said. “Anyway, the point is that when it comes around that I’m hosting, there will be plenty of room for everyone.”

  “What about this house?” Auggie asked.

  “I could rent it, if I find the right people,” June said.

  Jules pointed to her with his spoon. “I’m a little concerned about you and Gus rattling around in a house that big all alone.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time,” June said. “Maybe we’ll just pick one room and stick to that.”

  Laughter spread around the table. It died out quickly.

  “It’s just an idea,” June said.

  # # # #

  “Are you sure that you’re okay with this?” June asked Gus. They were sitting on the porch stairs of their little house, looking over at the pond.

  Gus looked over his shoulder at their house. They had lived there less than a year and a half, but it already felt like home.

  “What happens if we don’t move?” Gus asked.

  “Not much,” June said. “Technically, a lot of this yard belongs to the big house. If new people bought it, they could put up a fence and block us out. We might not be able to use the pond.”

  “But I like the pond.”

  “I know,” June said.

  “Can we afford to live there?”

  “We can. We’ll have to rent this place, eventually. I don’t want to have it sit empty without bringing in income. But
we have enough money from Aunt Allison and when the sale is final on the other property, we’ll have plenty.”

  “Why can’t you just buy that big house and rent that?”

  June tilted her head and considered the notion.

  “I guess it would seem weird to live in the smaller of the two.”

  “But couldn’t you rent the big one for more money?”

  “Probably.”

  “We don’t need all that space,” Gus said.

  “You’re right about that.”

  “Can we try it that way, Mom? I don’t want to live in a big empty place again.”

  “Yes. We’ll try that. I honestly don’t know if it’s possible to rent a giant house, but I don’t see why we can’t try it out. Thank you, Gus, that’s a good idea.”

  She ran her fingers through his hair and then patted his back before she got up to go.

  Gus waited for the screen door to shut before he stood up. He walked around the pond, looking for frog eggs in the water. His friend Cleo had an aquarium with a bunch of frog eggs that were turning into tadpoles. Gus thought that if he found some, he might be able to talk his mom into getting him an aquarium.

  He gave up the search when he remembered that he hadn’t checked on his tree. Over in the tall grass, beyond the part that was mowed, Gus had cleared one spot down to bare dirt. After digging a little hole, he had planted something that he had picked up from Mumma’s house before it was torn down. It was one of the helicopter seeds from the maple tree that had been his friend.

  The little seedling that had sprouted was the offspring of his friend. Gus saw the tiny leaves and ran to get a cup of water from the house. He dribbled water on the seedling as he spoke to it.

  “When you get tall enough, you’re going to be able to see my balcony from here,” he said. He pulled some more grass to expand the cleared circle. He wanted his new friend to get plenty of sun.

  “I’ll put a little fence around you so nobody accidentally cuts you down. This summer, I get to mow this part of the yard, so you don’t have to worry.”

  He got as close as he could. The plant needed carbon dioxide in order to grow, and that would come from his breath.

  “Then, by the time I’m ready to go to college or whatever, you’ll be big enough that I can put up a sign or something so everyone knows that you’re supposed to be here. Your roots will be able to grow towards that pond, eventually. Winter is going to be hard. There’s a lot of wind through here. That’s okay, though. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  Gus dribbled a little more water. They hadn’t gotten any rain in a week. The little tree would be thirsty.

  “When we first moved here, I didn’t like all the cars. They drive up and down this street all the time. You can hear them from my room. I’m used to it now. The sound reminds me that everything is okay, you know? Everything is normal.”

  Sometimes when Gus woke up, before he opened his eyes, he thought he was still back at Mumma’s house. He imagined that the rising sun would come through the window on his right. Then, when a car went by outside, he would snap back to reality and remember that he was in the new house. He and his mother were safe in a place where there were no strange roommates who lurked in the dark recesses of the house.

  On warm nights, after his mother went to bed, Gus would sometimes sneak out to the balcony to look at the pond in the moonlight. At least that’s what he told himself he was going to do. He was really going out there to look across the pond at the big house. There were lights on in some of the upper windows, even in the middle of the night. His mom said that they were on a timer, but Gus wasn’t so sure. Shapes passed in front of those windows even though the woman who used to live there had already moved.

  The shapes didn’t make Gus afraid. They were just like the cars that passed on the road. They really didn’t have anything to do with him.

  “When I close my eyes at night,” he told the little tree, “I can feel you out here. I know when you’re cold or when the wind is really blowing hard. I’m keeping an eye on you, don’t worry.”

  The tree didn’t look worried.

  It looked full of potential. It was clinging to the tiny patch of dirt where Gus had planted it and it was going to hang on no matter what.

  “You don’t have to worry about us ever moving. My mother is really loyal once she settles down to a particular place. I bet she’s going to live here forever. And once we have both houses, there will be enough room for my whole family, once I decide to have one. When my kids are old enough, I’ll hang a swing from one of your branches and then they can learn to swing right here while they look at the pond.”

  Gus stretched out on the grass, looking at the seedling while the sun warmed them both. A breeze made the little leaves shake and the seedling appeared to grow a tiny bit as he watched.

  Gus smiled.

  “I bet you’re going to grow faster than other trees. My friend at Mumma’s house did. I think that it grew fast because I was watching out for it. Actually, we were watching out for each other.”

  His mom called across the lawn from the porch.

  Gus sat up.

  “Come put some clean clothes on. We have to walk to the store,” she called.

  Gus said goodbye to his seedling and gave it one more sip of water before he strode away. Halfway back to the house, he broke into a run. He was certain that they were going to keep living there. He could feel it. His mother would go through with her plan to buy the big house, but they would just rent that out. This was going to be where they lived from now on.

  # # # #

  Ike Hamill

  October, 2017

  Topsham, Maine

  About Mumma’s House

  I drive by this house whenever I go up to visit my father. He’s the one who told me the stories and gave it the name. It’s a creepy, gray farmhouse that looks like it is just barely holding onto life. There are shades in every window and the roof is intact, but the trees and bushes grow far too close to the walls. It’s only a matter of years before the structure is swallowed by the woods that surround it.

  According to Dad, the house is locked in a dispute over the deed. When I started imagining the inside of the house, I pictured residents who didn’t dare venture deep into the place. There were too many dangerous secrets inside. Once a year, brave folks would arrive and try to breathe life back into the house for a moment.

  I hope you enjoyed Mumma’s House as much as I did. Families with twists and turns always intrigue me. I also like legends that turn out to be dangerously true.

  If you liked this story, you might also like Migrators, The Claiming, or Fiero’s Pizza. Those books are also haunted house stories in one way or another. You can visit my page on Facebook to see my pictures of the real Mumma’s House. My brother says that the whole road is haunted. When I was much younger, I went to the church on Scribner Hill Road to see the devil’s footprint by the moonlight. If you’ve been there, please let me know.

  All my best,

  Ike (ikehamill@gmail.com)