“I thought you were going to keep it,” Mom said.
“I am.”
I took out the recorder.
“What are you doing?”
“Giving it back.”
I placed the recorder beneath the old mantel, where Grandpa had once kept a clock.
Then I closed the box.
“I don’t need to carry the warning anymore,” I said. “I remember it.”
Mom looked toward the empty doorway.
“Do you hate this place?”
I considered the question.
“No. It was never the walls.”
Outside, the Honda waited at the curb, older and dented but reliable. Its trunk held a new suitcase, packed for a trip Mom and I had planned to take in the fall.
She slipped her arm through mine.
“Ready?”
I looked once more at the silent room.
“Yes.”
We stepped onto the porch.
Behind us, the door swung gently in the winter wind and settled into its frame.
I locked it, not to keep anyone out, but to mark the end of having to come back.
Then Mom took my hand, and together we walked through the falling snow toward the warm lights of home.
