A House Holding Its Breath
Ever since Mason died, our house seemed to hold its breath.
The silence settled everywhere — into the walls, into the coffee mugs left unwashed in the sink, and into the closed bedroom door at the end of the hallway where my daughter now lived like a ghost in her own home.
Most mornings, I would stand outside that door with my palm pressed against the wood, listening for the faint sound of her breathing.
Hazel was seventeen.
She used to dance around the kitchen while I made pancakes.
Mason used to call her Hazelnut. He would steal syrup from her plate and loudly promise that if no boy was smart enough to ask her to prom, he would put on a tuxedo himself and take her.
He never got the chance.
A wet road. A truck on Route 9. A Tuesday.
After the funeral, Hazel stopped eating. Then she ate too much. Then she stopped going outside altogether.
Only one person could still reach her.
Eli.
The quiet boy who lived two houses down had been her best friend since sixth grade. Every afternoon after school, he would walk over with her homework folded under his arm.
He never knocked too loudly. He never asked questions.
Sometimes I would find the two of them sitting on the porch in silence. Hazel would rest her head against the railing while Eli sketched in a notebook beside her.
One afternoon he looked up at me.
“Mrs. Mave,” he said.
He had called me that ever since he was twelve. At some point he had decided using only my first name felt too casual, while anything more formal felt too distant.
“She ate half a sandwich today.”
“Thank you, Eli.”
“For what?”
“For sitting with her.”
He shrugged as if it were nothing.
To him, I think it was.
