Years ago, I left this house, ran from everything in it, my dad’s last words repeating themselves on a loop in my mind, the funeral over so all I had to do was lock the door to my childhood home and flee, I thought, forever. Though he had left it to me, how could I walk the same halls he and Mom, gone just two years before, had walked since my birth? How could I sit at the same table where the three of us ate together? How could I? How could I?

Yesterday, the tenth anniversary of Dad’s death dawned gray in my married home. I looked at my husband, whispered, “I can go back.” 
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He hugged me and said, “Go.” I drove the hundred miles from our small town to the countryside where I grew up, memories making their way back mile by mile.

Now in the still house, the creak of the closet door rings and lingers where once language and laughter filled the kitchen. Inside, I dig through musty shirts, jackets, and hats Dad wore over seasons as he chopped wood, trimmed plants, and shoveled snow to keep us connected with friends and neighbors. I search until I find it--the broom. Bringing it out, I gaze back at my path taken today from entryway to closet.

Such a long, slow journey to return here, I marvel at the familiar books calling my name and the handsome grandfather clock striking the hour. My steps had left footprints in the settling dust of ten years, so I began to sweep.
Broom bristles leave a series of lines and patterns. I sweep again and again to clean every inch. The swishing has a rhythm, and I find myself humming a tune. After what seems but a minute, the dust disappears; no longer do I see my footprints on the floor.

I return to the closet, open the door once more. The creak still startles, no longer lingers.

Why not red?  To match her little leather book embossed with a dappled kestrel? To match the wilted poppy twisted in her deep blue hair?
 
She has seen the piles of dolls crowded in roped-together boats, drifting listlessly, seasick and heartsick, anxious as cats. They bleed because now they have blood. The wind eats their foreheads and painted pink smiles. They are the opposite of pure. Salt in their eyes makes them suffer. Their bright kimonos, many-layered, pinch and steal their breath. When they can’t stand the smell, they cast their peach blossoms and rice cakes into the sea. Who would want these dolls now?They are still too precious to touch.
 
The weight of any shoe fits the mermaid’s palm like a clam. Rows of black silk slippers gaze at her like otter eyes.

I rented an apartment above the bank downtown, where, straight out of the 40’s, an army of women staffed the gleaming counter, dabbing their lips and patting their hair. The children’s footsteps echoed through the light and airy halls. I don’t think we’re any safer here, my husband whispered, eyeing the crumbling black and white tiles, the slow flies buzzing in the windows. Winter was coming. The police would come faster if we lived above a vault. Later, when fall colors were at their finest, we could hold dinner parties at the country house. Now, on our first night, we searched for the hidden staircase to our new quarters. We each held a twin’s hand, but when the baby wailed, we saw yellow jackets crawling all over her teeth and tongue.

My kitchen clock stopped where I like it, 11:37, morning just blooming into afternoon. My desk clock froze at 10:10—plenty of time to work before lunch. Between kitchen and desk an hour opens: bees disappear into my hydrangeas, a thrush calls from the field, and my creek and the traffic beyond it warble and hiss, braid themselves into a white rush that settles around me. I have clocks of wasps and swans, of hammers and sand, of bridges over mist and the boat-shaped leaves that drift below. My doctor’s appointments never arrive on my clocks of teeth and dice, of napping cats, of thick erasers and combs. The children are always snug at school, learning their times tables and trading pennies for nickels.
 
If I go out, my brother comes and winds my clocks.