Cleaning Out the House
As we approached the front steps of our dad’s house, a new wrought iron fence sprouted up through small square trapdoors around the perimeter. Twenty-years-worth of vegetative growth—hollyhocks, hostas, holly berries, hyacinths—jumped ahead of us, unbalding the lawn instantly. We tripped and caught ourselves. It felt like Jumanji, a thicket, a mangrove, a forest with big piles of dead leaves you jumped into when you were little before anyone knew your allergy to leaf-mold. Since our dad had an ischemic stroke, the bare yard became a living canopy.
The plan was to clear it out. We were selling the last house he’d ever own, but the inside had become the outside as there was no front door. There were bats hanging from the molding above the doorframe, bats with lolling mushroom haircuts singing Brit Rock hits. The bats winged away with the soft flap of a stylish cape as we stepped over the threshold. The first room we examined was the kitchen. We towered above the surface of the table. We saw bat claws clasping the edges. They exchanged biscotti recipes in whispers. When we opened the refrigerator, there were bats swinging from the white racks above a pool of raw chicken juice. They were estimating how much it would cost to fix the stairs. There were definitely bats, they told us, under the kitchen sink among the Ajax and bottles of dollar store cleaning spray, bats who would ask why we hadn’t arrived earlier.
In the bedroom, we found bats in the closet above a shelf of shoes. Our dad had one pair of shoes at the hospital, and they barely fit. We told the bats we needed to sort the shoes; we were trying to decrease his risk of falling. The bats told us they were shoe shopping. They told us to stop disturbing them.
In the living room, there were bats where the ceiling drywall was torn out and hadn’t been replaced. These bats were tuning small guitars. In the bathroom, there were bats in the medicine cabinet next to four kinds of dental floss and plastic handheld flossers and several decommissioned toothbrushes and toothpicks. These bats had shiny teeth and clean ears and blemish-free faces and moisturized wings.
There were bats on the yardsticks leaning against the wall in the hallway. I found bats inside the pockets of spring coats. These bats counted loose change. I could see through the window that there were bats underneath the eaves of the dangerous covered patio. These bats were unfurling caution tape.
Every time I moved something, I was afraid of the bats. Bats who’d put the crisp, mummified bodies of their loved ones to rest. Bats playing nurse to other convalescing bats in scrubs and non-skid hats. Bats who could hear things I could not. We were supposed to take every object out. I feared making any quick motion. I was worried the bats would fly away and leave us to clear this house alone.
