The House Where Autumn Lives

“Your mother passed away this morning.”

The words echoed in my ears, cold and sterile, as if the nurse on the other end of the line had just told me the weather forecast. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t ask how it happened. I didn’t even feel the phone slip from my hand, only the dull thud as it clattered down the hallway, startling Mrs. Whitaker in 3C. I pulled my wool gloves on, the ones Mom knitted before the last fight, and sank down on the concrete stairs between the third and fourth floors. Above me, the hallway light flickered—on, off, on, off—like a heartbeat running out of steam. The walls were scrawled with old phone numbers and sharpie graffiti: “Call for a good time,” “Ethan was here,” “Forgive me.”

Nobody was coming up. Nobody was going down. It was just me and the echo of that nurse’s voice and the silence that followed. I wasn’t supposed to feel numb, was I? I was supposed to break, to sob, to call someone—maybe my brother, Jeremy, or Aunt Carol—but I just pressed my gloved hands together and listened to the distant hum of traffic, and the wind rattling the window at the end of the hall.

I sat there for what felt like hours, replaying the last conversation I had with Mom: “You never listen. You never wanted me to be happy. Why did you even have kids if you hated us so much?” Her face, red and tired, the lines around her eyes deepening. “Jag, please. Don’t do this.” The sound of the door slamming still rang in my ears. That was six months ago.

My phone buzzed with messages. Jeremy. Aunt Carol. Even Rachel from college, who must have seen my silent status update. “I’m so sorry.” “Call me when you can.” “Do you need anything?” I stared at the screen until the words blurred. I imagined them all back in Indiana, in the old house where autumn always clung to the windows, the air thick with the smell of cinnamon and woodsmoke. I hadn’t been back since Dad died two years ago. Mom said it was too hard for her to see me, meaning it was too hard for her to see how much I’d changed—how much I reminded her of him, maybe.

The next morning, I boarded a red-eye flight to Indianapolis, my backpack stuffed with the only suit I owned, the gloves still in my pocket. The air tasted of burnt coffee and jet fuel. Jeremy picked me up at the airport, his jaw clenched, eyes bloodshot. We didn’t hug. We barely spoke. Just the sound of NPR on the car radio and the old familiar ache in my chest.

At the house, the porch was littered with golden leaves. Aunt Carol was already inside, bustling around the kitchen, her voice too bright, her movements too fast. “You must be starving, honey. I made pancakes. Your mama’s favorite.”

I stared at the empty chair by the window, the place where Mom always sat with her tea, watching the world fall apart or come together—it was always hard to tell which. The house was a museum of her: half-finished knitting on the armchair, the scent of her lavender hand cream, the worn photo of Dad and me at the state fair. Everything felt suspended in time, as if she might walk in any minute, scold us for our silence, make us laugh in spite of ourselves.

Jeremy broke first. “She left a letter,” he said, pushing an envelope across the table. “For you.”

I stared at it. My name—JAGODA, all caps, her angry handwriting like barbed wire. I didn’t open it. Not then. Instead, I went upstairs to my childhood bedroom, where the walls were still painted pale blue, my old trophies gathering dust on the shelf. I lay down on the bed and let the tears finally come, hot and silent, soaking through the pillow.

We buried her on a gray, windy Saturday. The church was half-empty—just a handful of neighbors, Aunt Carol’s church friends, and us. I listened to the pastor’s words about forgiveness and mercy, but they felt like they belonged to someone else. Afterward, Jeremy and I stood in the cemetery, the wind whipping leaves around our feet.

“Why didn’t you call her?” he asked, voice breaking.

“Why didn’t you?” I shot back, more harshly than I meant. “We both left. We both stopped trying.”

He shook his head, tears brimming in his eyes. “I always thought you’d fix things. You’re the strong one, Jag.”

I wanted to laugh. Me, strong? I was the one who ran away, the one who couldn’t face the mess we’d made of our family. I remembered the fights—about Dad’s drinking, about me dropping out of college, about Jeremy’s silent retreats into his room. Mom trying to hold us together, her hands always busy, her voice always tired.

That night, I sat in the kitchen with Aunt Carol. The house creaked and sighed around us. She poured me tea in Mom’s favorite mug, the one with the orange leaves.

“Your mama loved you,” she said softly. “She just… she didn’t know how to show it. Not after your dad.”

I nodded, swallowing the ache in my throat. “I didn’t know how to love her back. Not really.”

After everyone went to bed, I finally opened the letter. Her words were messy, the ink smudged. She wrote about missing me, about wishing things hadn’t been so hard between us. She asked for forgiveness—and offered hers in return. She wrote about the autumns we spent baking pies and raking leaves, about the warmth that always crept back into the house, no matter how cold it got outside.

“I hope you find your way home again, Jagoda,” she wrote. “Not just to this house, but to yourself.”

I sat there until dawn, watching the sky lighten through the kitchen window, the world outside tinged gold and red. I realized I didn’t hate her. I didn’t even hate myself, not really. Grief was just love with nowhere to go, and maybe, in time, I could learn to let it settle somewhere softer.

Do we ever really know the people we love? Or do we just haunt the same houses, carrying our autumns around with us, hoping for a second chance?