some might think there’s no life in the house, but i know otherwise. i’ve made friends

with the mighty black snakes who take up winter residence. one has grown from a thin, stringy,

mean-looking fellow to a thick band almost six feet long and round as my wrist. he enters the

house when the days shorten by climbing the gnarled, vine-covered tree hovering over the back

porch. dropping from a low-leaning branch, he traverses the roof and stretches upward along

the wood siding to enter the attic window, triangular snout tap-tapping, seeking entry. hail has

splintered the windowpanes, and he slides over the edge into the attic to hibernate. sometimes

he noses his way through the lime and horse-hair mortar on the central fireplace chimney and

drops into the rooms below in search of mice.

his compulsion is uncomfortably familiar, though in my case the brown river rat was my

prey. prisoners’ fare. so much time has passed, yet those months in a miserable union prison

camp are as real to me today as then. famished, i slit my quarry from ear to naked tail, tossed

aside the oozing hide, and punctured the pink, shiny body with a stick. twisting it past bone and

gristle, i roasted the flesh over fire until it curled crisp. oblivious to spikey hair and whiskers, i

welcomed it to my tongue, as warm, juicy fat dribbled on my chin. the image thins to a film of

nausea and is then gone.

here in my childhood home, the mice are a constant. their daily occupations exhaust me

with their ill-conceived, herculean efforts. they struggle for days, dragging acorns half their

own size through cracks in the stone foundation, hoisting them through the interior walls,

gnawing ragged holes in the baseboards, shoving them across the halls, hopping with them up

the stairs, and then thrusting them through openings chiseled in the backs of dresser drawers—

all just to find the perfect storage place. it’s a treacherous trip through the house when the coiled

monster with flicking tongue is lying in wait to bulge his belly before the winter’s sleep. the

whole thing casts me low in spirit; their activity reminds me of the futility of so many human

endeavors.

and i remember. folks say you take nothing with you when you go to meet your maker, but

i’m here to tell you that memory tracks your every step like a rabid dog. things learned and

retained in the mind are a pestilence that not even god can dispel—causing me to wonder if the

strange power of remembering isn’t the devil’s device. even now, when my worn-out body has

fallen away and the past is more vivid than the present, i am plagued by mistakes grand and

small. there’s no remedy for remorse—memory’s dark shadow—and no fleeing from the mind.

as days turn into months and months into years, i remember, i remember until more than a

century has passed.

soothing visions of boyhood innocence and my marriage have been my only salvation,

wrapped round like a soft blanket to ward off the rest. here in this house lies a way. here’s

where i’m beyond the reach of the harrowing war years. in the corners of my mind, i can find

the soothing touch of my beloved wife ellen, my sister mary’s playful smile, and my little

daughter cara’s pigtails flapping as she skipped toward me. it’s there that i dwell.

now, after decades when nothing interrupted my solitary recollections—not even time’s

passing—everything has changed. a month ago, in the early afternoon, i heard two sets of

footsteps, one heavy, the other lighter, clump on the porch stairs and then rustle through the fall

leaves banked against the old screen door. my knees trembled and i couldn’t find my voice. no

one has approached my front door in over twenty years. alarmed, but a little curious too, i

floated in the hall near the ceiling as a key twisted in the rusty lock. two strangers, a young man

and a young woman, barged in, followed by their inquisitive black dog.

i couldn’t believe my eyes. what right did these people believe they had to enter my house?

where did they get a key? and both were dressed like hoodlums. he was clad in a collarless

shirt with writing on it as though he was a poster board, and she was in long denim pants like a

boy. to my mind, the only womanly touch was the silver ear hoops that peeked through her hair

when she moved.

this couple wasn’t put off by the black snake that slithered from the sofa cushion and

escaped up the fireplace chimney or discouraged by the ribbons of faded wallpaper that rippled

across heaps of crumbled plaster cluttering the floors. nothing seemed to deter them! they

explored each room, handled the books, used a letter opener to pry up the lid of the cedar chest

safeguarding my sisters’ high-necked blouses and bustled skirts. they even pawed through the

tattered blue handkerchief box that contains my medals from the battle of gettysburg twenty-

fifth and fiftieth reunions. the dog flopped on the parlor rug, of all places, after making a ruckus

about the snake and then sniffing every corner. i couldn’t think what to do; my mind was a

blank. stunned helpless by this invasion, i reeled back, as though punched in the gut.

the woman spread out on the dresser top the crumpled reunion ribbons of crimson and

indigo, ornate with rectangular silver bars and gold medallions. she held up to the light the

yellowed newspaper article describing how confederate and union veterans clapped one

another warmly on the shoulder as if we’d shared some mutual rite of passage, nothing more.

“here, take a look at this,” she said. the man’s hand passed right through me as he reached for

the paper, but he paid no mind. finally, i found my voice and yelled at the top of my lungs,

“what the hell are you doing here? get out! get out right now!” the woman only shivered and

knitted her dark brows together. she looked momentarily annoyed, as though a horsefly had

buzzed her ear, and then continued to rifle through drawers. there was no reaction from the

man. i wondered if these interlopers were stone deaf, although no one ever seemed to hear or see

me. it used to break my heart in the years after i passed, when my wife ellen was still alive. i

yelled again, “don’t you dare touch my things! or else!” but with no effect. i began to sense

that threats would be useless. panic clawed at my throat.

now these harbingers of doom invade every weekend, armed with mops, odd liquid soaps,

and a noisy machine that sucks up dirt. they show up out of nowhere, she with long brown hair

twisted on top of her head, ready for messy work, and he in another shirt with a meaningless

message. they unsettle everything—piling sheets, hairbrushes, combs, dented pots and pans, my

sister mary’s sewing remnants, my daughter cara’s aprons, faded velvet curtains, and whatever

else they deem disposable in a heap of glossy black bags in the backyard. i look anywhere but at

their industry, feeling queasy in my stomach and weighted in my heart. they are senseless to the

distress they are causing.

what has happened to my years of silence broken only by birdsong, the hum of rain, and the

wind’s murmur? that calm has been destroyed by buzzing machines that slice wood, the whack-

whack of pounding hammers, and the dog’s piercing bark. the riot of noise drives me to the

opposite end of the house, but even there i find no peace.

they have no respect for the fact that even though my shell and those of my family were

borne away to the cemetery behind the church, everything else, including dried-out face cream

and rusted hairpins, has stayed where the last hand placed it.

my daughter, cara, was the last to live in the house. childless and widowed in her late

twenties, she had moved back home into the embrace of her family. eventually, my parents, two

sisters, wife, and i were gone too. then she had relied on the things we’d left behind to keep her

company, same as i do now.

these new people act as if the wide wings of the armchair don’t still hold an impression from

pa’s daily ritual of reading the latest issue of the staunton spectator, or the silver-handled

hairbrush isn’t imbedded with the touch of mary’s hand. or that my dark serge coat, the special

one i wore to sunday services every week and that still hangs in the upstairs cupboard, doesn’t

remember the slope of my shoulders.

these intruders seem ignorant of the fact that i’m still here, that this is my home, that every

object, as i touch or catch sight of it, floods me with warm memories that reaffirm my sense of

who i am. i won’t stop being tom smiley as long as evidence of my life surrounds me. and as

long as i’m tom, i’m safe from whatever happens to unworthy souls.

but now they are stripping away that evidence, piece by piece, memory by memory. i’ll lose

my grip if they continue. first, the outer layers will slide away, like an onion in the hands of a

cook. those layers are the man reflected within my home’s four walls and its furnishings—the

guileless boy, loyal husband, and law-abiding citizen. the knife’s edge next will slice into the

core, leaving disconnected bits of soldier tom scattered about. finally, with the last cuts, the

secret i’ve kept from everyone will lie exposed, radiant in the dark. i’ll erode to nothing more

than a formless shade that yields to hell’s gravity. the heavenly judges who decide a soul’s fate

will then have no choice but to speed my fall. this man and woman will destroy me.

how their presence makes me ache for my own family and their affection, when my home

stirred with a multitude of their voices and activities. ma, pa, my sisters mary and tish, and

then my wife ellen and our four—grier, argyle, will, and cara—still sound in my ears. our

only grandchild, sweet little helen, would shriek with summer joy when grier drove up with her

in his smoke-belching ford, all the way from kentucky.

of my own offspring, cara was the last to perish. i watched her grow old alone at the farm,

into her eighties. cara’s thick, ebony hair that her mother used to plait and tie with silk ribbons

faded to a wispy white halo with pink flesh showing through. age contorted her hands into

painful claws. she ventured out less and less and kept a lonesome journal that mostly tracked the

weather. most nights, she indulged in a dram of alcohol and groped her way up the stairs to her

bedroom at the back of the house. as a father, it wracked my soul to see my daughter fall into

such a state.

when she was gone, there was no one left to care about. over time, the house has soaked into

my being, and i’ve expanded out into it until there is no difference between it and me. the dry

rustle of a roach scooting across the floor, the construction efforts of a nesting chimney swift, the

drilling of a borer bee in a porch beam—all merge with who i am.

i’ve overheard these peculiar people speak of “modernizing” the farmhouse for a weekend

place as if it’s theirs, as though my presence matters not one whit. by damn, i won’t permit it.

in addition, on warm days this woman strides about unconcerned that her slip of a dress

immodestly displays her long, bare legs. what in god’s name is she thinking? perhaps this is all

for the man’s sake. he calls her phoebe and watches her with a happy gleam in his eye. i

suppose some might consider her pretty, but my wife never revealed her legs or wore her hair

loose in that way, long brown strands swaying with every step, except in private moments. this

woman also has a sprinkling of freckles across her nose, frowned upon in my day when flawless

pale skin was prized, and she’s almost as tall as her male companion. i don’t see the appeal.

my dear ellen was diminutive and plainer than this woman, but her upbringing in a lutheran

minister’s family instilled qualities of forgiveness and forbearance that were attractive to me. i

met her a decade after the war. i remember spying her for the first time across the oak pews at

new jerusalem presbyterian church. what a graceful neck, what slender wrists! not one loose

strand escaped from the raven-black hair twisted tightly on the back of her neck. the tenderness

with which she calmed fidgeting siblings and tended to her elderly aunt beguiled me. when she

felt the heat of my stare, i struggled to glue my eyes to the hymnal. such thoughts rampaged

through my mind! a woman like her might save me from myself. i imagined how the touch of

her hand would replace my despairing moods with shivers of pleasure. she’d love me despite

my shortcomings, just as she seemed to love and have patience with her family. her serenity

appeared contagious. i fell for her that very first morning and determined to win her. my ten-

years’ seniority didn’t put her off and, after six months of unrelenting courtship, she broke down

and became my wife.

poor ellen had no idea what she’d gotten herself into. the private pleasures of new marriage

kept my sickness of heart at bay for several months, but one day she found me in despair, head

bowed. “what’s wrong?” tears flooded her soft eyes. “you spoke so impatiently to me this

morning when i asked your plans for the day. it was as if you despised my very presence. is it

something i’ve done or said?”

“no, sweet. please forgive me.” i paused, the heaviness in my chest choking the words. i

couldn’t bear to look at her. “i’m not worthy of you, or anyone, for that matter. it was a mistake

for me to coax you into my life.” she averted her face so that i wouldn’t see her pain and

clenched the flowered fabric of her full skirt until her knuckles were white. i arose from the sofa,

abandoning her in the middle of the library. the porch door banged shut behind me, and i

headed for the overgrown cow paths along the fence line on the hill above the house. there i

paced until i wore myself out.

over the years, ellen found a way to cope with my moods and irritable temperament. when

our children were born, she ran off to her mother’s in greenville, north carolina, for as long as

six months for each child. she claimed she was going for reasons of health, but she didn’t fool

me. for the last baby, argyle, she enrolled cara in school for a semester and didn’t come home

for christmas. the best i could do was send letters enclosing the bedtime stories that i usually

recited to my three little ones, or small gifts, such as a puzzle or a wool scarf pattern for cara,

who was eight and learning to knit.

during my bad times, ellen tried to talk me into a better state of mind. she said, “why can’t

you accept that you are a good man? and find peace in that. why must you be so hard on

yourself?”

“i can’t help it. i would do anything to change, if i could. i hate causing you pain, but it’s due

to something you would never understand.”

“you’ve never tested my understanding.” she smiled and added, “although you do test my

patience sometimes.” she touched my arm tenderly. “if only you’d give me a chance to learn

what ails you so.” but i could never risk that. not ever. “i feel i never see anything of you but

your shadow,” she said, her voice trailing off.

then ellen seemed to gain resolve and shook her head in frustration. “the children and i love

you because you’ve never taken a switch to them, regardless of how disobedient, and you listen

patiently to my needs and troubles with a generous and understanding heart. that should count

for something.” she nodded her head emphatically as if she’d settled the matter.

but it wasn’t enough. every morning, the old brown rooster on the chicken house roof

awakened me to an inescapable dark state of mind. i’d lie motionless and track the black mood

as it radiated from behind my eyes, slid down to my heart and then plumbed my limbs until it

claimed even my toes and fingers. against this burden, i strove daily to prove the value of my

existence. ellen had no idea how hard it was to lift my head from the pillow, much less to

soldier on for one more day.

yes, i was even a good citizen in some people’s minds. folks reelected me for six terms to

the county board of supervisors, and it’s true i championed ways to make their lives easier,

such as paving the county roads. now they can haul their vegetables and meats to market during

the spring muddy season. later, in 1901, when the state wanted to restrict voting rights of

blacks by forcing them to prove they could read, all the while exempting whites, i railed against

this injustice. i spoke in community halls and on the steps of the courthouse and thumped on

flag-draped lecterns in protest. folks only turned sour faces toward me and heaved rotten eggs at

our front door. they elected someone else as their delegate to the state convention, but i had

fought hard for the right thing. and, as ellen often said, “after all those years as sunday school

superintendent, look at you. you’re a church elder, one of the most respected positions in our

community.”

but these efforts never made up for my failings. ellen was heroic for trying, but not even an

angel could disentangle me from the web of shame i’d woven. i was guilty of a rash and naive

act that resulted in the killing of someone i cared for. for whom i was responsible. i might as

well have killed him with my own hands, wrapping my fingers around his neck and squeezing

until there was no breath left. never a day passed in my life that i wasn’t reminded that this was

yet another day he wouldn’t see.

ellen didn’t suspect i hadn’t started out as a devout churchgoer. faith had nothing to do with

it. it was because religion was the only prescription for a diseased mind in those days. and after

the war, i had a diseased mind. folks were convinced that lack of faith in god and his son was

the reason melancholia took root. i never considered either trustworthy, but i continued to hope

that churchgoing would provide a cure, even to the very end.

i do believe in one thing. hell is real. i know it lurks just beyond these four walls. new

jerusalem preachers’ fiery exhortations, year in and year out, persuaded me of its truth. beyond

a doubt, the demon realm exists.

to be honest, my good works were entirely a form of atonement. a hedge against an eternity

of hellfire and damnation. they were a wager that my four decades of church work and my

community service were payment enough for my sins. but the debt was never fully paid. my

utmost dread was for my family and friends to discover what i’d done, the shameful secret i’d

buried for so many years. i couldn’t bear for them to know what a sorely unfit man i was, and

then, finally, for me to be driven from the gates of heaven, if such a place exists.

while i’ve been distracted by these thoughts, that strange woman has been digging through the

library like a terrier after a rat. she has scattered across the floor piles of dog-eared and dusty

books from shelves stretching from floor to ceiling.

what a mess she’s made of the room. after all, it is my room. strolling around edges of the

sunlit library, i lightly tap my sons’ engineering texts and college annuals and glide my fingers

across the soft leather spines of books about biblical times and the many ladies’ novels that

consumed ellen’s and my sisters’ afternoons. the brontë sisters’ works were their favorites.

here also are my parents’ tiresome texts on presbyterian church history, as well as favorite

classics of english literature. i can still hear pa’s sonorous voice reading from dickens’s spirited

oliver twist, as we three children listened wide-eyed. inspired by longfellow’s great romantic

saga the song of hiawatha, i memorized long passages during my twelfth summer, perched on

the sturdiest limb of my favorite oak beyond the pasture, the words rustling in my skull. the

poem’s melancholy milky way—a broad, white pathway guiding ghosts of plumed warriors

heavenward across a frozen sky—too often comes to me in an evening.

now the woman’s fingertips have brushed something behind the newly exposed bookshelf—

something misplaced a century before she was born. she strains to disengage a moldy packet

wrapped with a twist of shattered twine. i feel a jolt. they are the letters my younger sister mary

wrote to me during the war! i haven’t seen them for more years than i can remember. “get

away, emma. shoo,” the woman says to the dog snuffling at the thin sheets. she lifts away one

or two papers, and after scanning through the stack for a few minutes, places the packet on the

oval sofa table. she suddenly looks up, stares in my direction, and hesitates as if she senses

something. shaking her head, she hastens away from the room with the black dog, its neck hairs

bristling, pressing into her calf as if its life depends upon it. mary’s letters remain on the table.