Safe As Houses

I —

I say goodbye to houses. And apartments. People are harder to disentangle from. They can stay with you, no matter where you go.

Some people live in just three or four homes their whole lives. There’s the childhood home; the home you live in sometime during your youth where you taste your own freedom; the one you move into when you get married and start your own family; and then maybe one more you end up dying in. My great-grandparents were like that. My grandparents too, mostly. I know a lot of people who have only lived in a small number of homes. I was like that for most of my life in New Mexico, and then, after college, in the span of ten years, I lived in nine different places. Three in New York City. Five in San Diego. Back to New York — this time, Ithaca — for one.

That last one was with you. We knew it would only be temporary, a chance to save up for something more permanent, soon, as we built the foundation of our marriage. My heart was full. My belly was full; I gave birth to our daughter, and though I missed feeling her kick inside of me, I still felt full.

We returned to New Mexico, to the land of endless skies. An East Coast friend once told me that the one time she’d been to New Mexico, she felt like she was going to fall off the planet.

“The first night there, I was looking up at all the stars, and I just felt like I was tipping forward, like there was nothing that could pin me down or hold me back.”

She said the feeling became more intense during the day, and it terrified her. Since then, she added, she’s had a new appreciation for the dense woods and urban jungles of her native land, where she still lives.

I’ve never had kenophobia. In fact, I crave and seek out room to move in. My native land is open and vast, so maybe that’s why it felt so satisfying to return to it. Still, I felt ready to establish roots so we could be anchored to the earth, just in case.

The house we bought was the first one I could say was mine, even on paper. The first one I could sigh at, see with my eyes closed, whisper to that we were in it together for the long haul. And it was so, so beautiful. Adobe everywhere, thick and timeless. Hand-painted blue and green Talavera tiles with floral motifs. High ceilings. Vigas. Skylights. Stamped-tin outlet covers. Two courtyards. Built-in, floor-to-ceiling bookcases (Finally! No more moving my favorite kind of baggage across the country, back and forth, again and again.). It was a dream house, my dream house. Roomy, to be sure, the biggest house I’d ever lived in. But also cozy. Safe. Steadfast. Tangible and present and real.

In those first official days, I’d lie down on the cool, red brick floor of the entryway and leisurely make red brick angels — lingering on some textured spot, gliding my fingertips along a smoother stretch — and smile at my daughter while she crawled around and over me. We’d babble happily to each other, and I’d move my gaze between her delicious cheeks and the kiva fireplace in the dining room that the previous owners had painted a glorious pale turquoise.

When we tired of our floor games, I’d pick her up and show her the long, dark red ristra hanging by the front door, which was robin’s egg blue. I’d let her gently touch the fuchsia bougainvillea growing by the wrought iron front gate. We picked and ate (and squished) the tomatoes the previous owners had left growing in abundance in the elevated garden beds; we rubbed our hands with the basil or the lavender that grew to the west of the house; we watched lizards warm themselves on nearly every outdoor wall.

“Mama,” she’d say, pointing at everything. “Home? Home?”

“Yes, baby,” I’d tell her, twirling a sunflower in front of her. “This is home.”

When my daughter took her first significant steps by herself, she did so in her room. (You were there for that; that was nice.) When she mastered the ability to ride a tricycle, she zoomed up and down the main hallway. Every custom cabinet became further customized with white plastic child-safety locks, and I thought the cabinets looked even better with them on.

So the three of us lived, my daughter, my house, and I. Sometimes we were four, with you, if you were home. I mean, I know that technically you were home often, but you stayed in that back corner room you claimed as your office, emerging for a break to eat the dinner I would cook. When you came back from work trips, no matter how long, you had to quarantine. It became easier to stay sleeping in separate rooms; we’d already been doing it in Ithaca so you could be sure of a good night’s sleep. I mean, when you were home, doors stayed closed.

I imagined the parties we would host when the pandemic was over. I imagined accepting all of the work that kept coming my way, instead of sliding farther and farther away from my own personal and professional goals and desires. I imagined what it would feel like to sleep again.

“Things will get better,” I’d say after cleaning up after dinner, to no one sitting at the dining table.

My mother came over one Saturday morning to help me plant all the spring bulbs I had bought. It was one of those magnificent Indian summer days, hot still but the breeze carrying with it the hints of fall, and we pushed apart the soil in places we thought nothing was yet growing, so that in a few months, cheerful bunches of crocuses, daffodils, and tulips would sprout up. My daughter sat on a blanket sprawled out across the grass, her face shielded by her pink-and-white, polka dot sun hat, vigorously banging on a metal colander with the wooden spoon you carved that one time. You’d said you didn’t like that spoon because the cavity wasn’t deep enough, and it was uneven. I told you that you just hadn’t spent enough time with it; you’d been eager to get to the next project. But I felt it would be a waste to throw the spoon away, and sure enough, it now had a purpose. My mother and I turned and stood up to watch her as she shrieked with joy, and I laughed too, wondering if you could hear all this noise from your desk. From where I stood, wiping my brow with the back of my garden glove, I could see the bay window of your office looking out onto the garden. I could see your computer monitor and speakers stuffed onto the bench, the bench that was meant to be sat on, for looking out through that window onto the garden. I could see little computer lights winking at me, but I could not see you. Perhaps you weren’t even sitting at your desk. I waved anyway, if just to that beautiful bay window.

“Give it time,” my mother said later. “Just watch how things will grow.” The roses hung their heavy heads, the aphids now exposed, and whispered what she forgot to add: apart.

The bulbs were still frozen in the ground when I told my best friend, “I don’t want to leave this house. It’s mine.” But in the end, I did, because now I know, after all this time, after so much moving: people are where we live.

Before I left with my daughter, I ran my fingers down the entire length of the main hallway one last time. I stood in front of the book cases and promised to my books, “I’ll come back for you.” I stared at the bougainvillea, knowing there was a good chance it would die.

One night, while she slept and you worked in your office, I sat inside her closet, which was still full of her clothes and toys though some were already packed and hidden in the car, and I let my tears soak into the floor. By then, I’d learned to cry quietly.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured, to the bricks below her and the vigas above her. And, knowing she’d be coming back here, to this house, at least at some point, at least for some time, with and without me, I added, “Please keep her safe.”

I began to feel as though I was tipping forward, the vastness of what lay before me growing dark and overwhelming. I swear I felt the house embrace me.

I will teach my daughter that “home” can be more than one place. I will help her plant her own spring bulbs someday, if she wants.

I —

with my daughter, with my life

with my body, with my heart

— I will create my own space.