Short Story - Inheritance.

I pulled into the driveway; the long grass between the twin dirt tyre tracks was shot through with weeds that scraped along the underside of my car.

I took a slow, deep breath to settle the flutter of nervousness rising from my stomach before I opened the door, climbed out and walked along the line of aging conifers to the gate and my first glimpse of the house.

It was nothing like I remembered. I was expecting a gothic nightmare, grey and black with windows like blank eyes, listing ominously, ready to draw me in and never let me go.

What I saw on that warm spring day was just a house. Sure, it was old, late nineteenth or early twentieth century, but its age was where the similarity with my memories stopped. It stood proud on top of its small hill, surrounded by gardens that were neglected but beautiful. The house was tan brick with a silver tin roof. It was L shaped with two windows in a vertical line on the left, where it fronted the garden, and a verandah trimmed in red iron lattice work ran along the rest of the building front. It reminded me of the terrace house I’d shared when I was at uni.

I stepped onto the verandah, the boards spongy under my feet, and looked up at the imposing door. It was dark wood with leadlight inserts featuring the image of a crown. The house exhaled as I pushed open the door, dust swirled in the shaft of sunlight. I sneezed.

‘Sunny, you really don’t have to go,’ my partner had said to me as I’d packed my overnight bag into the back of my car that morning. ‘We could just hire someone. They can sell anything of value, get rid of the rest and clean it up for sale, easy. I mean why did she even leave the place to you; you barely knew her.’

I must admit leaving everything up to someone else was a tempting thought, but I just didn’t feel right about it. My Aunt Lea had left her house and all her belongings to me when she died, even though I hadn’t seen her since I was about six or seven. Still, she was family and taking care of her place myself was the least I could do.

‘I’ll just go up there for a day or two, have a look around and decide where to go from there. It’ll be fine Jack. I’ll be back before you know it.’

The front door opened onto a pale blue entry hallway trimmed in dark stained wood, that ran right through to the back of the house and a later addition. The hallway itself had a sitting room and an office opening off the left side and formal dining room on the right with a large cedar staircase taking up the remainder of the right side. I followed the red and yellow Persian hall runner to the end and out to the addition where I found a mudroom with a back entrance, a green fifties bathroom, and, to the right, a wood-panelled kitchen, the same vintage as the bathroom. The air in the house was stuffy, suffused with the heavy loneliness of an abandoned home.

I headed upstairs to work out where I would be sleeping. The first room looked like it had been Aunt Lea’s room. The floral wallpaper matched the pink bedspread, the air held the lingering scent of rose potpourri and there was a scattering of toiletries on the dressing table. The next door opened onto a generic space which I figured must have been a guest room. It had a double bed, a dark-stained bedside table and matching wardrobe. The only other item in the room was a blue leadlight lamp on the bedside table that matched the blue painted walls. I put my overnight bag down and moved on to the room across the hall. It was filled with boxes featuring things like Xmas decorations and FRAGILE written in a neat hand on the sides. Old coats had been piled on top and a patchwork quilt was folded neatly and placed on an old foot-pedal sewing machine. Aunt Lea’s storeroom. I moved on to the last bedroom.

My breath caught for a moment in a gasp of surprise. I was standing in a little girl’s room. From the pale pink canopy bed and the framed picture of a fairy tale castle, to the rocking horse with the sparkly rainbow mane, it was a room fit for a fairy princess. I was confused, Aunt Lea never had children. As far as I knew she’d never even married.

I sat down on the edge of the bed and suddenly felt six years old again.

I’d been asleep when something woke me. I opened my eyes to see a dark shadow looming over me. I screamed. The lights flicked on and Aunt Lea was there, holding me, trying to comfort me. I wouldn’t let her. I kept crying even though I saw that the dark shadow had just been the bedside lamp, a large nodding flower with a pretty fairy, that leaned over the edge of the bed. Aunt Lea must have taken me downstairs because the next thing I remembered was waking on the lounge, wrapped in a blanket, and hearing an angry voice.

‘Take her, Amy. Just take her and go.’

My mum, Amy, had picked me up like a baby and carried me out. That was the last time I’d seen Aunt Lea. She still sent birthday cards and each year we received a box of the sweetest nectarines, but Aunt Lea herself faded from my mind.

I stood up and walked over to the fireplace. On the white painted mantle there was a row of photos in pretty silver frames. A mum, dad, and baby daughter standing by a rosebush, the baby girl being held in place on the rainbow rocking horse by a beaming father, Mum helping the little girl blow out a single candle. The only person I recognised in the photos was the mother, Aunt Lea. I moved along the row to the last picture. It was an image of a newborn in a tarnished frame. I picked it up to read the engraving at the bottom.

Sunday-Pearl, 11 May 1988

I dropped the picture as my hand flew to my mouth. My full name was Sunday-Pearl, but everyone called me Sunny, and my birthday was May the eleventh, nineteen eighty-eight. What was this picture doing in Aunt Lea’s house?

I had been adopted by my parents, Amy and Rob, not long after I turned one and I had never seen a picture from before that time. My parents had always told me that my adoption was closed, that my mother hadn’t wanted me to know who she was. But now here I was, standing in a little girl’s nursery in my childless spinster Aunt’s house with what looked to be a birth photo of me. I couldn’t even think.

I bent down to pick up the photo and a piece of folded paper fell out of the back of the frame. I refastened the back of the picture, picked up the paper and unfolded it slowly.

Dearest Sunday-Pearl,

I write this letter in the hope that one day you will understand.

I love you with all my heart and I miss you every day, but when we lost your father, when that drunk driver took him away from us, I fell apart. You were so young, and you looked so much like him and I just couldn’t cope. You needed someone that could look after you and give you all the love and joy that you deserved but my grief was overwhelming, and it threatened to drag you down with it.

When Amy agreed to look after you, I believed it would only be temporary, but it took me so long to recover. By the time I was ready to be your mother again it was too late. I couldn’t bear to take you away from the only home you knew. Please don’t think I didn’t love you, because I did. You are the light of my life, my beautiful Sunday-Pearl.

Love always,

Your Mother, Lea.

The house, my house, stood silent and strong as everything I thought I knew fell into ruins.