"Homecoming" by Sebastian Westbrook

Homecoming

by Sebastian Westbrook

I haven’t been home for a while, but my mother has been gone longer.

I lost her when I was six. My dad was away on business, as usual, and I was staying with my aunt for the weekend. My mother was alone in the house when someone broke in. We don’t know if she confronted them, but they pulled a gun on her anyway, shooting her in the head and chest. By the time my father returned and found her, she was long dead.

I wasn’t told what really happened at the time. Just that Mummy had gone away for a while and Daddy didn’t know when she was coming back. Didn’t want to say anything about it. Over time, it became clear to me what that meant, and I knew she wasn’t returning. I was then raised by my aunt as my dad grew distant from me as he struggled to take care of himself. There was no way he could look after me as well. Even when I visited, my father still wasn’t all that present, constantly hidden away in the attic, never letting me join him. For what reason I was never quite sure. It was dark up there, he said, and not a place for a young girl.

I moved out of my aunt’s house at twenty-two and in the decade that followed didn’t go back to visit my father at all. Spending time in a house with a burnt-out, crestfallen, lonely old man only made the absence of my mother more painful. But now I had news, and felt I needed to go back to see him, no matter how much it might hurt to return. I’d been prioritising my emotional needs; I had to get used to that not being my first thought.

I take the train, with nothing but a jacket and my phone. After a short walk from the station I knock on the front door of my early childhood home for the first time in forever. My father opens it and waves me in like he doesn’t like to let fresh air into the house. Inside he’s clearly made an effort to make the house look presentable, but he’s in a much worse state than I imagined. I can’t tell if it’s just a general decline with his age or if he’s taking less care of himself. However, I greet him with the closest imitation of cheerfulness I can muster. The last thing I want my dad to think is that his daughter doesn’t want to see him, not now.

“Hello, Jessica. Been a while,” my father croaks. He definitely didn’t sound like that last time; I know that much.

“Sorry for not visiting sooner. I’ve just been trying to sort out living as an adult. I’m going through some things with work, new opportunities, relationships… yeah, relationships. But I knew I’d be back eventually,” I lie. Realistically I’d had plenty of chances. I just kept putting it off. Until now.

“That’s okay,” my father replies. I wonder if now is the time for my news, but I don’t get the chance because he says he needs a shower before fixing us lunch. I’d hoped we’d be going out but I can see we’re staying put. What I suspected looks like the truth: he rarely leaves. “You can visit your old room if you like.” 

The bathroom is downstairs; when he leaves me I go upstairs to take a look around. I had rarely gone upstairs in my previous visits before I moved out of my aunt’s, because I never wanted to be far from the exit. And my father was often in the attic, minding his own business. What did I care about rooms? But now I do. My childhood bedroom… 

I find it and realise it hasn’t been so much as touched at all. The goofy wallpaper is still up, the tatty rug is there, and my old toys still scattered across the floor, just missing the few I’d asked my aunt to retrieve for me. 

Seeing my old toys lying around, I decide to put them away. Mum used to help me clean them up, so I think it might be a nice little activity to remember happier times with. As I start picking them up and putting them into the toy box with its faded paint, I started to get curious about the attic. Would there be more to see up there, perhaps a box of old books? I realise then I’d never seen the attic. I was not the young girl any more, I was an adult with responsibilities. I could handle it. I take the narrow stairs I was never allowed to climb. 

I’m not prepared for the contents within.

I feel like I’ve stepped into a mad scientist’s laboratory. It’s much cleaner and high-tech up here compared to downstairs, but what catches my attention is a vertical glass containment tank in the centre of the room. Inside is my mother, naked, unconscious, as young as the day we lost her, just floating in there in greenish fluid. I’m frozen to the spot. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Then, I hear footsteps behind me and my father’s voice.

“Beautiful, isn’t she? Hasn’t aged a day. Of course, that was the point. I couldn’t bear to lose my beautiful doll to dirt and decay. Why bury her in a wooden box when you can preserve her beauty forever?”

I turn to stare at my father. I don’t recognise him anymore. He’s a stranger to me. A stranger with a gun.

“I don’t want you feeling left out, dear daughter. I’ll simply do to you what was done to her. You can join her, free from life’s distractions. You can have your beauty preserved indefinitely. We’ll be a family again. Together forever.”  

I stammer: “Please… No… I’m pregnant!”

“Even better.” He raises the gun to my heart.