All of the windows were trimmed with red paint. I’d redone it last summer before heading to Waterloo. The last bit of fun Dad and I had as a family while I still lived at home. I didn’t want to forget both of us covered in paint when we’d started flicking it at each other, or the laughter that had filled the August day as we’d worked and played. But it seemed distant, like someone else’s memory, one I no longer felt a part of. Would that be my last memory of good times with him? I tore my gaze from the windows and committed the rest of the house to memory. Wine-red tin covered the roof, which made a soothing pattering sound when it rained. Best sound ever to fall asleep to. The front walk we’d assembled with broken flagstone curved around flowerbeds I’d planted with tulips and daffodils, now bright with red and white and yellow—spring at its finest. I stood there and wanted that feeling back, the sense of home, of belonging.
