Still, I would be lying if I said the locked door didn’t gnaw at my curiosity from time to time. Fifty-two years is a long time to walk past a mystery.
Two weeks ago, everything changed.
Helen was in the kitchen baking an apple pie for our grandson’s birthday. I was in the living room watching the evening news when I heard a sharp crash, followed by her voice, thin with pain.
“Russ! Oh God, Russ!”
I ran in and found her sprawled on the linoleum. One hand clutched her hip. Her face was drained of color.
“I slipped,” she gasped. “I think it’s broken.”
The ambulance arrived quickly. At the hospital, the doctors confirmed a fractured hip, two clean breaks. At seventy-five, that’s no small thing. The surgery went well, they said, but recovery would be slow. She was transferred to a rehabilitation facility across town.
For the first time in decades, I came home to an empty house.
I hadn’t realized how much of the house’s life came from Helen’s small movements: the hum of an old tune, the clink of dishes, the shuffle of her slippers across the floor. Without her, the silence pressed in on me.
It was during those quiet evenings that I began hearing the sound.
