By Val Margolius

The walls used to be blue. Despite other, bigger differences, that was what Daphne noticed first. When she left this house twenty years ago, the ground floor had two fewer bedrooms; there was no fountain in the backyard, and the walls had been blue. 

Posters had lined every inch of her sister’s bedroom, hearts etched into the oak doors on either side of their Jack and Jill bathroom, and the faint stench of sweet manure had wafted in through the cracked windows. Now, the nearby farm was a cul-de-sac, all the doors were sleek black wood, and the walls were bare like a newborn baby.

In the backyard, she looked at the flowers and vegetables, the squirrels on the phone line, and the remaining trees. She thought of summer camp. Daphne and her sister would run around playing zombie tag, learning how to pull weeds, and tricking the younger kids with the green glass door riddle. 

She never would have described life as fast; before, life’s course seemed to drag and whine as if reluctance to jump could blunt the inevitable tumbles. Now, the past forty years felt rushed and frighteningly forgettable, like if she focused too long on the clouds above, all the memories would fade away. She almost wished they would, if only to lessen the dread of being their only keeper.

To Daphne’s mother, who Daphne knew watched her from the kitchen window, the biggest change to the house must have been the new urn on the bookshelf. Mother’s parents, her two cats, and her husband had sat on the bookshelf long enough to collect bunny hills of dust. Breaking from tradition, her daughter was in a navy-blue container rather than warm brown. The books above the urns were all volumes of psychological thought, a reflection of her husband’s career, and the books below were a mix of cookbooks and picture books. Daphne imagined her mother wondering if guests in her home saw these artifacts as reflections of her life, when she would sooner relate to the gardening guides and novels in her office. Daphne had not been back in so long; perhaps her mother thought she would make that assumption.

The light was fading, the pasta boiling, the sauce sizzling, and the temperature dropping. It was only a matter of time before Daphne would sit at the new table, face the new urn, try the new dish, and ask why the walls weren’t blue.