Old House

        James got out of the car and looked for the driveway. He looked back at Ellen and shook his head. "Too overgrown. I can't see it well enough to take the car across the road ditch.

        A mosquito buzzed in. James slapped at it as Ellen got out of the car. "They grow rice here now. Used to be corn. With the irrigation, no one wants to live back here."

        Ellen slapped at her arm. "I killed two mosquitos with one slap."

        James laughed, "Watch out for snakes.  Dad killed a copperhead right over there.  He pointed, and then waded through the weeds into the front yard. He raised his arm. "All of this was ours. The house and the forty acres. I spent my first eighteen summer vacations here.  Dad built the house himself."  He looked at the small frame house. A few patches of paint still clung to the wood. The front porch roof had finally fallen down. The roof of the main house still looked new.

        He waded through waist-high weeds to the front porch. "The beam's rotted through. We'll go to the back."

        "Is it safe to go in?"

        "The main house is fine. Mom spent two thousand dollars putting a new roof on ten years ago. The roofing people just laughed and shook their heads."

        "Was the Alzheimers starting then?"

        James shrugged. "Who knows? That was the year she had me replace some boards on the porch with untreated lumber.  The boards rotted in less than a year. The roof was a strange thing to do, but they loved this place, and it would have fallen down. I loved it too when I was growing up. The trees made it cool, even in the hottest part of the summer. Yeah, it seems strange, but it's neat in a way too. Not many people my age have spent weeks without electricity and indoor plumbing. I know what back-to-nature really means."

        Ellen said, "Speaking of plumbing..."

        James waded through the weeds to the backyard. He pointed to a slightly higher clump of brush. "That's where it was. Fell down fifteen years ago."

        "Where what was?"

        "The plumbing."

        "I'll hold it. Are you going in?"

        James studied the back porch. "I want to. The boards in the center look solid. If I don't fall through you can come too."

        "No thanks."

        James climbed onto the porch, then picked his way past the rusty water pump to the back door. "Aren't you a curious? A part of my past."

        Ellen smiled. "OK. Briefly."

        They walked from room to dimly lit room. James opened a closet door and jumped as a deer mouse popped it's head up and stared at him. "Tame little sucker, isn't he? Not much else to see. People kept breaking in. Eventually nothing worth stealing was left, so we left it unlocked. That way they didn't damage it breaking in."

        "I wonder how many girls got knocked up here over the years."

        James shrugged. "With the mosquitos you'd have to be desperate, but it's probably been done." He walked to the back door and paused, looking out at the weed-covered back yard.

        "What do you see?"

        He thought, "I see mom and dad bustling around cleaning this place up, getting it ready to stay in. I see us sitting in those big rocking chairs by the light of a kerosene lamp, listening to rain come down. I see my sister and I playing on the front porch. Mostly, though, I see mom and dad alive and enjoying themselves.  I see them reliving those first years of their marriage, when times were tough, but love really did get them through.  Out loud he said, "It's just an old house. They'll probably bulldoze it before next planting season."