Bonnie Kellogg
I'd Rather Be Writing

Summer 2018 – Homecoming

 

The place was lost to him a long time ago. But, bred in the bone, the smells of the old house linger on. Jake swears they follow him around, unbroken by time or the distance he’s put between them—not that he’s gone very far away. A miscellany of things summons up these recollections: The musty smell of timeworn books, for example. Or decaying newspapers that fill every nook and cranny of his childhood home. Or wooden paneling, like the mahogany that adorns the walls of his father’s study. The sweet hint of roses scenting his mom’s favorite lotion was another. She often rubbed into her hands and elbows. Then, by her own hand, his mother vanished from his life. Mom died, yet the roses remained.

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Jake imagined it meant her spirit still watched over him, comforting him in his imprisonment. She’d diffuse the floral bouquet into the air for only him to notice. It consoled him, at first, before the sweet turned to bitter. He grew up and moved away, hoping to leave the bad behind. Except the scents from his childhood home and early years followed him as though he’d packed them in his suitcase and brought them along. Even now, the faintest whiff of some familiar scent will trigger it, sparking a flood of long-ago memories and sending him into a state of jittery nerves and dark moods.

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Early on, he pushed himself to go back. The love for his father motivated the visits and was the only reason he’d ever returned to the house. It made the old man happy. In time, though, his trips grew farther apart until they dropped off the calendar altogether. Years passed…. Now, his father was gone, and this homecoming would be his last. He planned to sell his childhood home, placing it in his rear-view mirror, trusting it was the long-awaited remedy to leaving the past in the past.