A Short Memoir of Two Houses Vinn McBride, First Place 1.
The house on B Road went up for sale maybe a year after he exhaled his last on the kitchen floor. It was a great old house, a true old house the kind of old domicile that only gets sold to people who eke out soil-living. The poverty of it, the flaws in the crafting— intolerable. Great old house. Cellar-with-a-lifting-door hardwood-floor-with-rugs, taxidermy-mounted-gaping-heads bedroom-with-bed-on-floor, great-upstairs-rooms-with-sliding-doors pine-painted-oak, century-turn luxury. Great old house. She learned to hate it, I think, she had to go, I know, she fled and took her brother with her, and safely built a new fair lodging with great lifted ceilings, hardwood floors space galore, a basement you can breathe in- no ghosts of the past, too young to be a haunted house. Great Uncle never spoke about life with grandpa, but his eyes twitched tight when in conversation he came up— careful, thoughtful Uncle, 6’4” to his baby sister at a spare 5’4”, [ 86 ]
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