Prompt about the attic

It was such a silly move to buy this place, she thought. First of all, it was in New Jersey. She was actually moving back to New Jersey. Her father had told her to go and get New York City out of her system two years ago, and at that time she had been so hurt by his notion that the dark-haired, thick browed, shapely daughter of a cold Lebanese mother and an aged unloved father couldn’t hack it amongst the driven, successful, and cultured types. She recognized that her father had never intended to actually hurt her with this comment, but when taken together with all the other such comments, what had he expected the outcome to be of his blind paranoia pouring against her then evolving skull. Now she bore its accumulation, a self-defeated crown. Stepping onto the gray Tendura porch, she was willing to concede some truth in what her father had always told her since, be it the chicken or the egg’s fault, she was back in New Jersey and of her own volition. She glanced up the street before opening the door, and let go of a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding. It curled out of her mouth like a bushy cat’s tail and disappeared beyond the horizon of her parent’s protruding garage not even a block away. Afraid that any of her kin might see her, she quickly pounced on the all too golden, brass knob of the door and jumped inside.

Second of all, she had bought the house sight unseen. Her parents had told her of a nice house they saw in the neighborhood, but failed to mention its proximity to their lair. Her parents knew exactly how much she had been saving as they opened her CDC account and therefore what she could afford without infringing on the allotted $500 she was required to save every month in case of emergency. She presumed this emergency was likely calculated to consider the possibility of her never marrying. They announced the house right at the heels of another episode with Elliot, and in a whirlwind of tears and shame she accepted the option without considering its full consequence. She had figured giving up on the City was a steep, but just price to pay to feel like she was getting distance from Elliot, her gyratory punishment.

Third of all, the physical distance she felt while standing in the dark living room, despite the bare windows, did nothing to alleviate the warm pain that resided on an acre of her heart that had not been cultivated, or even so much as mowed, in close to a year. She could see Elliot in the kitchen, grumpy, boiling 8 eggs, waiting to eat them while standing and reading a Financial Section. If Elliot was there making eggs then a row of hot sauces was nearby, and she could sense the salty, spicy combination on the back of her tongue. She felt old tears brimming in her feverish eyes and she was ashamed to let them loose for a run around in her new house. Anxiety rose in her chest. She scanned the dinning room, then quickened her pace, and ran up the stairs to her bedroom still holding her tears. The bedroom was bare and therefore a bedroom only in theory. She climbed into the frigid attic and felt a sense of relief, distance from her parents, from Elliot. She did not even register her surprise to see a locked room in the attic. She kicked it with all the might of her stocky leg and huddled inside releasing the cat’s bushy tail, which embraced the side of a coffin.

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