I moved into my late mother’s old house to start over after my husband left me pregnant and alone. But while fixing the nursery, I found something hidden on the wall that made my blood run cold.
When I first saw the house again, it looked smaller than I remembered — maybe because I’d grown up, or maybe because time had stripped it of everything warm.
The paint had peeled off like dry skin, the porch sagged a little, and the wind whistled through the cracks in the shutters. But it was mine now.
My mother’s house. The only thing left after the divorce and the man who said he loved me… until I got pregnant.
I parked two blocks away, where the road came to an end. Not even the bus bothered to come this far.
Mrs.
Harrison’s husband always parked their car near the last turn.
“You’re really moving in there?” she asked when she saw me unload boxes. Her thin lips twisted like she’d bitten a lemon.
“Someone has to,” I said, forcing a smile.
“Well, it’s just… not many live at the end anymore. Too quiet.
Too empty.”
I didn’t tell her that the quiet scared me a little, too. Inside, everything smelled like dust and lavender soap. The wallpaper in the hallway was still the same—tiny roses fading into yellow.
Mom used to hum while pasting it.
Finally, it just hung there, brittle and peeling, like an old memory refusing to let go.
I started unpacking, one box at a time, trying to imagine laughter there again. A crib stood by the wall, still in its packaging. My belly brushed against it when I turned.
“We’ll make it cozy, sweetheart,” I whispered.
“Just you and me.”
Outside, two older women stood by the fence pretending to pull weeds. Their whispers carried easily in the still air.
“She’s all alone, poor thing.”
“And pregnant! Doing heavy work like that?
What kind of mother will she be?”
I closed the window a little too hard, the sound startling them. For a second, I almost laughed.
Then I saw him. Across the narrow road, behind a half-drawn curtain, a man stood watching.
Broad shoulders, gray hair, a face I couldn’t read. He didn’t look away even when I caught him staring.
Our eyes met, and something strange flickered there—recognition, maybe? But how could that be?
That evening, while dragging an old chair onto the porch, I saw him again.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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