Author: Jeff (Page 6 of 12)

College life hit Ethan like a discordant chord. After twelve years of familiar faces in public school, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee was a lonely symphony. The first semester, he mostly kept to himself, a silent observer in a bustling hall. His refuge was the practice room, where he wrestled with private violin lessons and a beginner keyboard class. The rest of his schedule was filled with the mandatory core classes: Freshman English, College Algebra, Intro to Mass Communication, and even Folk Dancing – subjects he just wanted to get through.

A harsh truth soon emerged: Ethan wasn’t the violin virtuoso he’d imagined. The college music department was a different league, filled with talent that humbled him. He had a lot to learn and even more to practice.

Home, meanwhile, offered no respite. Though legally an adult in Wisconsin, Ethan was still treated like a child, his efforts at college met with a barrage of negativity. His father, in particular, dismissed his studies as “a waste of time and money.” UWM, a commuter school, meant Ethan drove to campus and back daily, his life resembling a joyless 9-to-5 grind. The crushing weight of loneliness and the constant barrage of disapproval at home began to take a severe toll on his mental health. Ethan was ready to quit.

One afternoon after Ethan’s classes, he was sitting on a couch in the student union trying to figure out what he could do. Staying at home was already a nightmare, and dropping out would only intensify the negative atmosphere. He had nowhere to go. An apartment was out of the question financially, and he didn’t know anyone well enough to find roommates. The stress mounted, anxiety twisting his thoughts and emotions into a suffocating knot. Tears welled up, blurring his vision.

Just then, a young woman walking by noticed his distress. She sat down beside him, a kind smile on her face. “Hi, I’m Peggy,” she offered, her voice soft and reassuring. “I’ve seen you with your violin and heard you pounding away on the piano in the practice rooms.”

Ethan, still teary, mumbled his name. Peggy asked if there was anything she could do to help. He almost said no, but something in her eyes, a genuine warmth, made him pause. He looked at her, feeling an unexpected ease, and then, the words tumbled out. He told her everything, the loneliness, the pressure, the suffocating expectations. Peggy listened, her attention unwavering, making him feel truly heard for the first time in a long time. When he finally finished, a wave of relief swept over him.

Peggy looked at him, a gentle smile returning to her face. “Are you hungry?” she asked. “I make a great mac and cheese. I’ve got some tea and a little wine if you’re interested.” She paused, her gaze steady. “You can’t do this alone, Ethan. You need some friends.” She stood up, extending her hand.

Ethan took it, and they began to walk. Then, he stopped. “Bessie,” he blurted out.

Peggy looked at him, confused. “Who’s Bessie?”

“My car,” Ethan explained, feeling a blush creep up his neck. “I know it sounds silly, but I named my car Bessie.”

Peggy stopped dead in her tracks, her eyes wide with amazement. “You have a car!?”

Minutes later, they were at a small, family-owned grocery store. Pooling their meager funds, they debated dinner options. “We should have something special,” Peggy declared. “I know let’s do spaghetti and meatballs…and get a loaf of Italian bread and some cheese.”

“Sounds perfect!” said Ethan. 

“Maybe some gelato for dessert,” Peggy added. “I think we have enough money.”

“Gelato?” Ethan’s eyes widened. “I’ve never tried it.”

“Everyone in the house loves gelato!” Peggy exclaimed.

“Everyone?” Ethan inquired.

“My roommates,” Peggy clarified. “You’ll really like them, and they’ll definitely like you.”

“Roommates, hmmm?” Ethan murmured to himself, a flicker of something new – anticipation? – stirring within him.

Ethan pulled Bessie in front of a grand, old Victorian house, subdivided into a duplex. Peggy directed him to drive around to the alley and park behind the house. “Don’t worry,” she assured him, “this is our parking space, and now we have a reason to use it.” Peggy was in a remarkably good mood, humming a cheerful tune. Ethan watched her, captivated by her unburdened happiness, a feeling he yearned to experience.

They ascended the back steps to the upper duplex, laden with groceries, backpacks, and Ethan’s violin. At the door, they were greeted by Amy, a self-proclaimed “hippie wannabe” who dressed the part but possessed the suburban directness Ethan was accustomed to. She was polite, expressed her happiness to meet Ethan, and was visibly thrilled about Peggy bringing home dinner.

The third roommate, Russel, entered the living room. Ethan braced himself, expecting the typical jock persona he’d encountered throughout high school. But Russel, to Ethan’s surprise, was an artist. He enthusiastically showed Ethan sketches for a stage play, asking for his opinion on stage designs. Peggy, however, intervened, suggesting they give Ethan a chance to settle in first.

Amy led Ethan to the living room couch. He gazed around, marveling at the abundance of framed and unframed artwork adorning the walls – truly amazing pieces. Amy then asked about his musical preferences. When Ethan replied “most anything,” she seemed a little annoyed. “Everyone has their particular type of music that fits their personality,” she stated, “everyone is unique.” Amy stood up, studying Ethan intently. “You seem to be in pain,” she observed. She walked to a shelf filled with record albums, selected one, and placed it on the stereo. The melancholic strains of Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” filled the room. She sat back down beside him. “This is how I see you now,” she said, her voice soft but firm, “but this isn’t the real you. The real you is buried under a whole mess of unnecessary bullshit. You need to toss the bullshit.”

Peggy, stepping in from the kitchen, gently chided Amy. “Cut him some slack, Amy, don’t scare him off. He’s a nice guy.” She smiled reassuringly at Ethan before returning to her cooking.

Russel joined them in the living room, settling into a chair opposite the couch. He began asking Ethan questions, seemingly genuinely interested in his answers. Amy, too, listened intently, clearly trying to piece together who Ethan truly was.

Dinner was fantastic, the spaghetti and meatballs surprisingly delicious. Russel opened a bottle of wine, and they shared it, a sense of camaraderie blooming around the table. After the meal, Ethan helped Peggy with the dishes. He thanked her for the wonderful dinner and the great time but said he should probably head home.

Peggy turned to him, her expression firm. “Nonsense, you’re not going anywhere. Why go home? Why go back to all that stress and negativity? You can stay here.”

“But my parents will wonder where I am,” Ethan protested weakly.

Peggy looked him directly in the eyes. “Do you really want to go home, Ethan? Think before you answer.”

Ethan closed his eyes, his thoughts a chaotic whirlwind. The stress he’d tried to suppress surged back, and he felt tears beginning to fall again. Peggy gripped his arms. “Ethan!” she exclaimed.

He opened his eyes. Everyone was in the kitchen now, all eyes on him. Ethan looked at Amy and Russel, then his gaze settled on Peggy. His voice, barely a whisper, was laced with raw desperation. “I never want to go back home.”

The summer of ’77 had bled into fall, and still, Ethan remained a ghost. Three months had passed since his hurried departure from his parents’ suburban home, and the initial frenzy of the search had begun to wane. For the Milwaukee police, Ethan’s disappearance was still an open and active case, a file gathering dust on a perpetually busy desk. There had been a handful of reported Ethan sightings, each one a flicker of hope quickly extinguished by the cold reality of a false lead. News outlets, once ravenous for any scrap of information, had gradually shifted their focus to fresher tragedies and triumphs. The public, too, had moved on, their collective memory a fickle thing.

But in the meticulously kept suburban home that Ethan had fled, hope, however fragile, still flickered for his parents. The phone calls continued, the hushed inquiries to friends and acquaintances, the desperate scans of every crowd. Yet, beneath the veneer of parental concern, a bitter undercurrent of anger and resentment surged through the family. Fingers pointed, accusations flew, and much of the blame landed squarely on Ethan’s grandfather.

“He encouraged it,” his mother would lament, her voice laced with accusation. “All that talk of music and art. He filled Ethan’s head with nonsense.”

Indeed, Ethan had spent countless hours with his grandfather, lost in a world of shared melodies and profound conversations. His grandfather, a man whose own artistic spirit had been crushed by the relentless demands of survival, saw in Ethan a kindred soul. He recognized the spark, the sensitivity, the innate creativity that set Ethan apart from the pragmatic, money-driven worldview of the rest of the family. He understood, too, how Ethan was suffocating in an environment where the bottom line was the only line that mattered.

“Money equals happiness,” was the mantra drilled into Ethan’s father, a belief forged in the crucible of the Great Depression. Growing up, Ethan’s parents had known deprivation, and that experience had solidified their conviction that financial security was the sole path to contentment. His grandfather, too, had chased that security, moving from one soul-numbing job to another, but in the eyes of his wife, Ethan’s grandmother, it was never enough. The Depression had hardened her, leaving her with a cynical edge and a deep-seated distrust of anything that didn’t contribute to the household coffers. She would openly belittle her husband when he dared to take out his accordion, dismissing his music as a “waste of time” that should be spent finding another job. Eventually, the accordion, a silent casualty of her disdain, found its way to the dusty attic, where it would remain, a forgotten echo of a silenced dream.

Years later, after Ethan’s parents were married and Ethan was a young child, a family meeting was convened. It wasn’t a discussion, really, but more of an ambush. Ethan’s mother, father, and grandmother ganged up on his grandfather, extracting a solemn promise: he would not interfere in Ethan’s upbringing. No talk of his past as a musician, no tales of playing in a band and being a traveling musician, no mention of artistic expression or freedom. The past was to remain buried. The future, they decreed, was about growing up, getting a job, and making money. Happiness, they insisted, would only follow the acquisition of wealth. Money brought happiness. His grandfather, defeated, agreed.

For years, he kept his word. That was until Ethan picked up a violin. His parents, perhaps seeing it as a fleeting childhood phase, allowed it, expecting him to tire of it quickly. But Ethan didn’t quit. He excelled. He found other young musicians, and an instant camaraderie bloomed, a shared language spoken through notes and harmonies. Ethan’s grandfather, witnessing this burgeoning talent, struggled to keep his silence, the promise a heavy weight on his conscience.

As the years passed, Ethan’s passion for music deepened. He attended music camps, played in a youth orchestra, and yearned to do more. He begged his parents for piano lessons, but they flatly refused. His grandfather saw the sadness in Ethan’s eyes, the vibrant spirit dimming, but felt powerless to intervene. Ethan began to withdraw, retreating into himself, spending more time practicing his violin, reading, and dreaming. He built a vivid fantasy world, a sanctuary for his imagination, carefully guarded from the harsh realities of his home life. This was also when the lying began. So deeply did he immerse himself in his invented realities that sometimes, the line between truth and fiction blurred.

Ethan was a gifted writer, his creativity a vibrant force that spilled onto the page. Parent-teacher conferences often highlighted his exceptional talent, urging his parents to encourage his writing. But his parents, clinging to their rigid vision of a “real” career, actively repressed any artistic inclination. This repression, more than anything, fueled Ethan’s need to lie. It was his only way to rewrite the story of his life, to escape the suffocating narrative imposed upon him. This led to a cycle of yelling, lectures, and punishments. Ethan yearned to rebel, but he felt trapped, forced to endure the hostile family environment until the day he could finally escape after high school.

Ethan stood in the foyer, the cool metal of the key still warm in his palm, a tangible link between the present and the unfolding mystery. His eyes, accustomed to the dim light of his own temporary refuge, slowly adjusted to the deeper gloom of this new, silent house. Small, hesitant fingers of sunlight pierced the grimy windows, struggling to illuminate the shrouded rooms within. Dust motes, ancient and restless, danced in the faint beams.

To his left, the living room lay in disarray, a testament to a hurried departure or a  prolonged abandonment. Furniture, humped beneath dusty sheets, resembled forgotten sculptures, while books and papers lay scattered like fallen leaves across the floor. The curtains, thick with age and grime, seemed too fragile to touch, sealing the room in perpetual twilight. Ethan instinctively reached for a light switch by the door, flicking it on and off in vain. No power. How then, did that light flicker on upstairs last night? The question echoed in his mind, unsettling and intriguing.

Carefully, Ethan stepped into the living room, trying not to disturb the decades of accumulated dust. His gaze fell upon the familiar glint of old newspapers and magazines among the scattered items. There were also bills, letters, and even greeting cards, each a whisper of a life once lived within these walls. He walked gingerly over the forgotten memories.

The next room, a dining room by its layout, offered a similar scene of neglect. Another light switch yielded nothing. In the corner, an old upright piano stood like a sentinel, its keys likely muted by time and disuse. Shelves, draped in sheets, lined the walls, hinting at hidden treasures beneath their dusty shrouds. A desk and chair occupied another wall, its surface buried under a fresh layer of papers. Next to the desk, metal cabinets that promised unknown contents. Several dining room chairs were scattered haphazardly, but there was no table, as if the heart of this communal space had been ripped out.

To his right, an open archway led into the kitchen. Here, the sunlight was less inhibited, reflecting off dirty white tiles on the walls, giving the room a surprisingly stark appearance. Yet, it too was a disorganized mess. Ethan tried the sink faucet, but only a musty smell and the eerie gurgle of trapped air escaping ancient lead pipes answered his attempt. In the pantry area, he found a hulking refrigerator, a relic of another era. To the left of the refrigerator, the back entrance beckoned, locked and bolted from the inside. He slid the heavy bolt, then inserted his key into the lock. With a soft click, the door opened.

He stepped outside, blinking as the sun’s bright warmth enveloped his face. As Ethan looked up at the sky, a strange sensation prickled the back of his neck – the feeling of being watched. He spun around quickly, but only the sidewalk leading to the front of the house greeted his gaze. A rustling in some nearby bushes made him jump, only for a rabbit to scurry out, disappearing into the undergrowth. Reassured, yet still slightly unnerved, Ethan went back inside, locking and bolting the door behind him.

A stairway heading down to the basement caught his eye. He tried the light switch, but again, no light. He made a mental note: next time, bring the oil lantern from the shed. The thought of exploring the depths below was both daunting and exciting.

Returning to the kitchen, Ethan made his way back through the dining room and into the living room. He cautiously pulled back the curtains on the front window, letting in a wider swath of daylight. With his shirt sleeve, he rubbed a small circle of grime off the pane, revealing the familiar outline of the house where he was living, standing silent across the street.

He closed his eyes, and the silence of this house filled his ears. He imagined. He pictured a bustling home, filled with laughter and daily routines, the sounds of life vibrant and clear. He could almost feel a love emanating from the very walls he stood within, a palpable connection that resonated deep in his heart. There was a reason for him to be here. Not just in this house, but in Royal itself. The answers he sought, the elusive pieces of his past, were here.

But with this sense of connection came a wave of sadness and disappointment. It was as if a vital link in this house, a bond between two people, had been brutally severed. The emotions rushing through Ethan were overwhelming, powerful, almost tangible. He felt dizzy, staggering and bumping into the living room couch. He sank onto its dusty cushions, the dam of his carefully guarded emotions finally breaking.

Tears streamed down his face, tears of sadness that felt like the collective sorrow of the house pouring through him. Then, the sadness curdled into anger. Why? Why did you leave? I was always here for you. Why did you shut me away for all these years? Why are you here? Why are you reopening the wounds of the past? Why? Why did you stop loving me? His emotions reached a boiling point. He stood, tears still streaking down his cheeks, and screamed into the desolate air, “What do you want from me?! What am I supposed to do?!”

A loud thud from upstairs abruptly shattered the emotional storm. Ethan froze, wiping away his tears, the raw emotion replaced by a surge of fear. Another thud. It was undeniably coming from upstairs. What was upstairs? Or who?

Then, something began rolling across the upstairs floor. It bounced down the steps, a rhythmic thump-thump-thump, coming to rest in the foyer. Ethan slowly walked towards it. The front door was still open, an escape route beckoning, but curiosity, despite his fear, held him captive. Lying on the dusty foyer floor was a red rubber ball.

He picked it up, staring at its vibrant color, so out of place in the muted tones of the old house. He bounced it once. The ball sprung right back into his hand, familiar and comforting. He began to squeeze it, the simple action surprisingly relaxing.

With the red rubber ball still in hand, Ethan walked to the foot of the stairway and looked up. Enough light filtered down from the upper floor to dimly illuminate the path. He wasn’t sure what to do, but the comforting feel of the ball seemed to instill a strange sense of confidence. Slowly, deliberately, he began to climb the stairs.

The second floor mirrored the disarray downstairs: four bedrooms and a bathroom, all in a state of disorganized chaos. Papers, clothes, and garbage littered the floors of every room. The bathroom was a disaster, the sink missing, the toilet bowl sitting in the bathtub. Ethan chuckled despite himself at the bizarre sight. He briefly looked into the other bedrooms, nothing catching his eye as out of the ordinary. He decided it was getting late; he should head home and get some food.

As he turned to leave the last bedroom, he bumped into a chest of drawers, sending a couple of books tumbling to the floor in a small cloud of dust. He bent down to retrieve them. They were scrapbooks. He gently placed them on an old bed frame and mattress. Ethan looked around the room again. Of all the upstairs rooms, this one seemed the most organized, almost as if…

His mind flashed back to last night. This was the room. Ethan walked to the window and looked out, confirming his suspicion. He opened the window, letting in a cool draft, and closed his eyes, trying to recapture the vivid image of the mysterious woman looking down at him from this very spot.

He snapped out of his dream, the red rubber ball slipping from his grasp. It bounced onto the bed and rolled to a stop. His eyes followed its path, then moved upwards. That’s when he saw it: the lamp on the nightstand. The source of the light he’d seen last night.

Curiosity overriding caution, he walked over to the lamp and stared. Could it be… He reached down, his fingers finding the light switch. He closed his eyes, took a breath, and turned the switch.

The light instantly flooded the room, making him step back in shock, trying to comprehend the how and why. His gaze fell on the two scrapbooks on the bed. He sat down and opened one, paging through it. His eyes widened with amazement and wonderment at the contents.

That night, Ethan didn’t make it back to his own house. He curled up on the old bed, the scrapbooks beside him, and finally drifted into a deep sleep after a long, stressful day.

The ethereal woman quietly entered the bedroom. She wore the same white nightgown from the night before. She walked to Ethan’s side, leaned down, and gently kissed his forehead. “Sweet dreams, my angel,” she whispered, her voice like a sigh of wind. She reached out and turned off the lamp. Her radiant glow momentarily cast shifting shadows across the room and over Ethan’s face. She smiled, a soft, knowing expression, and then, as silently as she had arrived, she disappeared.