I moved into my late mother’s old house to start over after my husband left me pregnant and alone. But while fixing the nursery, I found something hidden on the wall that made my blood run cold.
When I first saw the house again, it looked smaller than I remembered. Time had stripped it of everything warm; the paint peeled like dry skin, and the porch sagged.
But it was mine.
My mother’s house. The only thing left after the divorce and the man who left me when I got pregnant.
“You’re really moving in there?” Mrs. Harrison asked, her thin lips twisting as I unloaded boxes two blocks away.
“It’s just… not many live at the end anymore. Too quiet. Too empty.”
“That’s exactly what I need,” I said.
Inside, everything smelled like dust and lavender soap.
The tiny roses on the hallway wallpaper were fading to yellow, still hanging brittle and peeling.
I started unpacking, trying to imagine laughter here again. My pregnant belly brushed against a crib still in its packaging.
“We’ll make it cozy, sweetheart,” I whispered.
Outside, the neighbors’ whispers carried easily. “She’s all alone, poor thing.
And pregnant! What kind of mother will she be?”
I closed the window hard. Then suddenly, I saw him.
Across the narrow road, behind a half-drawn curtain, a man stood watching. Broad shoulders, gray hair. He didn’t look away even when I caught him staring.
Later, dragging an old chair onto the porch, I saw him cross the road silently.
He stopped, pointed at a loose board.
“Thanks. I’ve been meaning to fix it.”
He crouched down, nailed it back in place, and stood up.
“Your mother always did,” he added simply, then nodded once and walked away.
“Wait! I—”
But he was already gone, the door across the street closing behind him.
Later, over tea, Mrs.
Harrison knocked.
“You met him, didn’t you? Harry. Your mother used to talk to him a lot on the porch.
Then one day… she stopped. No one saw him for months.”
“What happened?” I frowned.
Mrs. Harrison just shrugged.
“People say he hasn’t been right since your mother passed. You didn’t hear it from me.”
When she left, I walked through the house, unsettled.
In the nursery, I pressed my palm against the wall where I’d planned to hang the new wallpaper.
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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