The house across the field was always facing us. And, I began to believe, getting closer. I was alone that summer after my older brother went off to college and my middle sister begged for sleepaway camp. I told myself I was looking forward to the time alone. The long dusky days with my books propped open on my lap and the scent of heather and baking earth wafting from outside. My hair had grown cumbersome, too long for thought, and fell in my face every few hours, marking time. I pulled my hair back, turned my page, and kept my head down.
The house across the way reminded me of a yellow sunflower. The sides were a fading lollipop color and the door was a rich chocolate brown. Twin windows faced us, like eyes, stared unblinking into our kitchen. I assumed farmers like us lived across the way. By the second week, I longed for it to be other children too. Though, by the second week, I noticed it too. I had woken up restless, uneasy, and unable to even finish a sentence or two. My mother was in one of her moods and I could hear her dragging her comforter through the hallway.
I listened for her to get back to bed and then slipped out of my own room. Dragging my own thin blanket, I bundled my book in my arms and went down the stairs, past the kitchen and the den and all the way to my father’s office.
My dad was out, leaving his office a drab open-mouth, all soft folds and humid, sticky leather. I curled up in his big chair that smelled like him. When I peaked out his nearest window however, the yellow house across the way was facing us. I looked back down, and then up again. I swore, then, squinting into the fields, that the twin windows looked closer. I frowned and squinted harder—trying to measure the distance of maybe thirty feet. Maybe less.
The sunlight faded and a single light turned on in the sunflower house—like a winking eye. And a head passed through the light. I slammed my book shut and crawled out of the seat. My father would be home soon. On my way upstairs, my mother caressed my face, and asked me if I had slept yet. I shook my head.
I went outside during the third week, a girl can only be cooped up for so long, and I needed to get the mail for our father anyway. The long grasses tickled my ankles and I tied my hair up with an entire rag to keep it off my neck. Crickets chirped, sing-song, and I made my way down the lane. The road was gravel rocks and my steps kicked up dust with every step.
Trees appeared to droop in the summer heat and I told myself not to look. I didn’t see. Or check. Or know. At the end of the lane, I grabbed the fat stack of envelopes and bills from the mailbox. I turned, head still down, and I couldn’t help it. I peaked up. The sunflower house was exactly where it always was. But the twin person-sized windows were facing me. I swallowed my heart. And swallowed again.
I inched along, clutching the mail to my chest, and gave myself the strictest instructions: Do Not Blink. I would watch the house this time and see where it went. Though, I already knew. I would always know.
My eyes ached, a steady pulse in the back of my head, and I flinched, stepping on a large stone. The house seemed to wilt under the oppressive hand of heat and there was a head inside. My heart thumped. Through the window was a girl, dark-haired, like me, sitting on a stool on a kitchen table. The table was odd, longer than I would expect, and she had a look of unhappy concentration, nose inches from the page as she was writing.
I blinked. And the house was five feet away, close enough to kiss, and I nearly tripped over my own feet darting the other way. I bolted our own door behind me.
“What is it?” my mother asked from within her comforter. I didn’t look up, heart pounding, and shook my head over and over. My mother put her cold, long hand on the back of my neck, nearly enveloping it, and told me it would be time soon.
I whimpered, because I did know. My father bellowed from the basement, cracked his fists against the floors, and I backed away from the front door. Our mail fell to the floor: bits of brown leaves and dark earth. My hair fell in front of my face like coils of heavy rope. My father bellowed again and I closed my eyes.
When I opened them, my mother asked me if I slept. I said yes. Night had fallen and the weather had turned quiet. The sunflower house was facing us—or, more accurately, we were facing them. My mother extended her long, bloodless legs, thin as chicken wire, into the earth. We pushed up, the house and I, from the earth. The trees bent away from our lumbering gate.
“Oh, poor thing,” I said, because I knew. I always knew. When our hungry house had been called by one in need of a roof. I didn’t know exactly what the others in her house saw, but I knew what she might: the splintering wood, opening wide like a mouth, biting down. And it would be nice to have a sibling again.
