Nonfiction | July 17, 2024

Rockdale 

Recently, I dreamed I was living at the Rockdale house. I woke with a mix of nostalgia and relief. I told my neighbor, who knows the current owners, has eaten meals on a table in their backyard. She said it’s no wonder I’d been dreaming; they’d just begun to remodel the kitchen.  

Sixteen years ago, the agile, eighty-something owner led us around the house and its 2.7 acres. I knew within thirty seconds this 1840s brick box with the bar up the road would not be our first home, stranded in a tiny township miles away from all our friends. I didn’t care how historical it was. This would not be the place we’d start a family, where babies would learn to crawl on plywood sheet floor, stained and stamped with sponge-painted flowers. We would not make meals in this ramshackle kitchen with walls that didn’t reach the ceiling, an industrial sink that was longer than my car. I feigned interest. The place reeked of convalescence and death. 

The three of us stood by the row of towering pines on the property’s west end. My husband stiffened against the wind and buried his hands deep inside his cargo pockets. Question by question, he summoned the building’s history and ascertained its structure. I was irritated, then alarmed. My husband’s attention span rarely accommodated idle chatter, and never for this long. The owner told us to take a minute, adding that she had an accepted offer on the house, then turned to go back inside. I looked at my husband and I knew. Dreams danced in his eyes.  

Tears rolled out of mine.