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The Red House (Story in progress) Copyright October 31, 2024 by Gary E. Andrews

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1. "Anishine Remembers" (October, 1920)

Anishine' (ah-NEE-shin-NAY) has only vague memories of the tenements where she had lived all her life.

Her vivid memories begin at the time of... the move... away from the tenements somewhere in the city, to the country suburbs.

"Remember," she asks, "in 'The Wizard of Oz' when Dorothy and Toto wake up and the world is no longer black and white, but color? That's what it seems like, now, looking back. That's what I remember, is colors."

She remembers one day there was lots of packing of everything in her home. They didn't have much.

"It was... fascinating... a bit frightening!" she told me.

Anishine remembers the smell and texture of a big black suitcase. Her mother pulled it out from under the bed, the dust, the two big straps like... like her father's belt... that went around it.

Anishine remembers the concern on her mother's face. It was there all the time now. Anishine liked when her mother would pick her up and the look would go away, by degrees. Finally, then, was her mother's face, smiling, laughing, talking, the way it... used to be... the way it always... used to be.

The old man who had come with cardboard boxes was cheerful.

Anishine was afraid of him! He was loud! Anishine remembers wanting to play with the cardboard boxes. She had a 'playbox' once but it got burnt up in the potbellied stove.

He was friendly, hugging Anishine's mother, laughing, calling out from the other room, walking through with empty boxes, pulling smaller boxes out of bigger boxes. He rolled up the rag rugs, and then his big brown work shoes clopping on bare floors like her father's hammer nailing floorboards and loose steps in the stairwell outside. Her mother filling a box with dishes. Anishine remembers how the man quickly folded the flaps so they stayed down, picking the box up, clomping across the floor, going out.

And coming back!

Anishine remembers thinking he was leaving the first time he took a box out, closed the door behind himself. She ran to her mother again when she heard him in the stairs, coming back. More boxes to fill. Her mother saw her fright, snatched her up, grinning. It's okay. Everything is alright. The man opened the door and came right in again.

Her mother stood too close to the old man to suit Anishine, his big red face, his unfamiliar voice, his loudness. She turned away from him, looked over her mother's shoulder at the house in disarray. She remembers her mother keeping everything in its place, in the kitchen, in the bedroom.

When they went down the hall to the bathroom she remembers her mother cleaning there, and everything there then having a place, while they were there.

Now... then... Anishine remembers... there was... chaos... disorder. It was confusing. Her mother puts her down. She walks through the two rooms, the bedroom, the kitchen, and sees things... out of place. Pots and pans on the floor, clothes on the kitchen table and chairs, books on the bed, the dark and light striped bare mattress, the closet door standing open, the closet empty, except... for her coat, her mother's coat, and... her fathers green Army uniform. He used to wear it every day when he first came.

"Stay out of the way, Anishine!" her mother called. She remembers repeating they rhyme in her head.

The man is back. They talk. They laugh, the old man, her mother, so Anishine isn't as afraid any more. Still, she wants to stay close to her mother, tries to hang onto her mother's dress. But her mother is moving around, putting things in boxes. Anishine remembers she still didn't know what was going on. 'Stay out of the way, Anishine'. She lets go her mother's skirts and wanders about the bedroom, the kitchen. The old man is going out with the big black suitcase.

Anishine remembers wondering where her father was. He had not come home for days. She looked for him, listened for him, smelled for him in the mornings. When he was home there was coffee in the mornings. When he came home there was hugging and kissing, laughing and strong hands that squeezed her, lifted her high up by the yellow light bulb, and down again. She remembers crying the first time he did it... because he lifted her fast, let go of her, let her fly up to the ceiling, by the lightbulb and fall back down. He caught her, but she cried and wouldn't let him do it again. Later he lifted her up, held her up, set her back down. She trusted him again. He smelled of woodsmoke and sweat and shaving lotion and sometimes with beer on his breath. Anishine remembers. She watched out the window for him when the sun shone in the bedroom and kitchen windows in the evenings, shading her eyes with both hands, watching people and horses on the street far below. She watched the rain fall, outside those windows.

Anishine remembers how her father came in, wearing his Army uniform. She was very young, but it was strange for him to be in their kitchen, hugging her mother. He moved in with them. It was strange to have him in her house. He was scary to her but soon it was normal. They all slept in the big bed. She knew he was her father. She remembers her mother telling her he was her father. But she was four years old and had never seen her father. He was away... at a war. She didn't know what a war was.

Her father stopped coming home, just some days ago, lots of days, and never came. And never came. And never came.

Her mother cried. And her mother cried. And her mother cried.

Anishine has a... vague memory of going... somewhere... men in long white dresses, the stink of chemicals, people in... beds... covered up with sheets. She remembers her mother's face, terrified. She remembers crying because her mother was crying, crying so hard. She was glad to get out of there, back to their home.

One day, Anishine remembers, her mother gave her biscuits and gravy for breakfast.

And biscuits and gravy for lunch.

And biscuits and gravy for supper.

The next day... well... Anishine remembers... that WAS the next day, the day an old man came with boxes, cardboard boxes. There had been only one biscuit that morning, and no gravy. And no milk. There was jelly... but... Anishine remembers the butter knife scraping and clanking in the empty jar, then a spoon, scraping, scratching, just enough jelly for a few bites of biscuit... too much biscuit... not enough jelly.

When all the boxes and bags and pots and pans were boxed up and gone Anishine remembers running through the rooms, hearing her shoes on the bare wooden floors, echoing off the bare walls. She shouted out, just a noise. She heard it echo. Shouted again. She remembers talking, listening, being quiet. Stepping quietly through the room. Stamping her foot. She remembers passing her hand through dust in the shafts of sunlight coming through the kitchen curtains. And... looking out on the street... searching the faces, the figures, one more time.

Her mother turns off the light, calls her name. She has her green coat on. She picks Anishine up, stands her on the striped mattress, and holding on to the white painted iron bed, cracks in the paint, dark spots where the paint was gone, as her mother puts her coat on, tugging her left hand off the bedframe, to put her left arm in its sleeve, buttoning it up all the way to her neck. She knew they were going outside. Her mother holds her right hand as she jumps to the floor, the noise echoing. Anishine runs past her mother to the kitchen. Her mother comes and turns off the light there. It's dark inside, but still light outside. She looks around at the corners of the ceiling, under the kitchen table to the stove. The dark corner where the empty wooden box is, no longer with potatoes, onions. Her mother picks her up, walks back into the other dark room, the closet, the mattress, the white bed, goes to the windows, parts the left curtain from the right, and Anishine parts the right curtain from the left. They look out. Anishine remembers that last look down at the street where her father never came.

She remembers seeing the wagon, old gray wood, a lighter shade than the soot tainted tenements, the old man moving around it in the red brick street, his hat hiding his face, the black suitcase, her father's uniform, the boxes in the back, the mule with blinders on its head. Anishine remembers.