In the Hearth of a Home

          The house stood, looming but quiet, tucked behind the only tree on the plain. From the outside, it looked warm, familiar, and solid—as if nothing could ever disturb its foundation. An onlooker would never suspect the hardships, the darkness that it held.

          The rooms were careful, filled with the markings of a family: small bedrooms with smaller beds, wide, hand-crafted dressers that held garments so worn and washed they barely held a shape. The kitchen was large and open with one single window that looked out the front of the house. This kitchen was this home’s center; once a quiet buzzing hum of life warmed by the hearth, now silent; the black pipe no longer releasing the smells, the sounds, the life of the family.

***

          It had been twenty years since the incident that silenced the home. Twenty years since the children had stood in the center of the worn oak floor of their room, dripping wet and naked. Too small, too cold to stretch to reach the top drawer that held their night clothes. Their mother had instructed them to wait for her in the room; she had just used the last of the day’s warm water to bathe all three of her children and with the thin, dirty rag dried them the best she could. The woman knew her children were cold and tired and wet, but she couldn’t bring herself to stand yet; to be needed once more.

          The father of these children stood in the middle of his home; their home. The large kitchen once warm and welcoming, now dark, haunting, blurred behind his tears of rage and sadness. His gaze wandered to the single window. Outside, he watched the swirls of snow cover the last of the firewood in a cold, wet blanket. The fire dwindled in the hearth behind him and he could feel the home beginning to grow colder. He knew that soon, the sun would vanish behind the horizon and the fire would burn out. He knew that the terrain was dangerous and now void of viable wood; he’d been searching day in and day out, miles from his home in every direction. There was nothing left—an overwhelming emptiness surrounded him just as the bare land surrounded them. He grabbed the rifle that hung by the door as he furiously swat the tears out of his eyes. The man looked to the heavens as he slowly, shakily lifted the gun to his lips.

***

          The sound of the shot echoed through the home, vibrating that large black pipe, the stained and worn oaken floors. The children and their mother ran toward the sound, toward the very center of the home; the center of their family. They found him face down in a growing pool of blood; his right arm extended as if he had been pleading to God.

          The three children were too young and couldn’t understand what had happened, why their father seemed to be swimming in a dark pool of molasses, why he wouldn’t acknowledge them. The mother had been frozen; too stunned, too numb to weep for her husband, for her children. Eventually, she regained control of her body, picked up her two smallest children and led the third to their bedroom. The fire was nothing but glowing embers and the sky outside the house was now dark and littered with the early night’s stars. As their home grew colder by the minute, the mother dressed her naked children in their night clothes and laid them upon the bed they shared. She kissed each of them as she pulled the thin, small cloth on the bed over all three of them.

          The woman returned to the kitchen by the aid of the lamp and in the silence of the oppressing darkness outside the window, began to clean. She felt tears prick her eyes as she reached for her husband’s body and struggled to lift him and place him to rest outside by the firewood he’d chopped. She drew the last water from the well that was beginning to freeze and went back inside. The water was enough to remove most of the blood, but the pigment had soaked into the floorboards. On her way to their bed, now hers alone, she checked on her children and found them awake still and shaking from the cold. The mother climbed atop the small bed with her three children and hugged them tight until they all fell asleep.

***

          By the time the sun had risen the next day, the woman had thrown what little belongings they had into a few sacks, bundled up the children as best as she could, and left the home, never to return…

Written for Master of Arts in Professional Creative Nonfiction Writing at the University of Denver; Fall ’20