Home Is Where the Bodies Are

by Jeneva Rose

I stare out the kitchen window, which overlooks five acres of property, a mix of trees, hills, flat grassy land, and a creek that cuts through it all. My parents purchased the land from a farmer back in the late seventies and had a home built here shortly after. It was their little slice of paradise—until it wasn’t.

I flick to the text I sent my sister hours ago. It’s unread. She’s probably strung out in some motel, a needle wedged between her toes because her veins collapsed long before she caught up with that high she’s been chasing all her life.

There’s not many things you can count on in life, but that . . . is one thing you can count on. It will rise and it will fall—no matter what. Don’t matter if you’re sick or sad. Don’t matter if there is war or there is peace. Don’t matter if you see it or you don’t. That sun. You can count on it.

Your father. He didn’t disappear. Don’t trust . . .

I always knew the only thing that would bring me home was death. I just didn’t know whose it would be.

They have a plethora of their own unresolved problems—Nikki, an addiction to drugs, Beth, an addiction to mediocrity. How could I expect them to take care of this?

When you shine brighter than the sun, it’s hard for others to look at you, so you have two choices: look and be blinded with resentment or look away.

I remember his words, If you can control your emotions, you can control anything.

You know how they say there are some relationships you can slip in and out of, that even if a lot of time has gone by, you just pick up where you left off? This isn’t one of them.

I remember the lyrics to “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails because it was playing when I overdosed the first time, and I thought it would be the last thing I’d ever hear.

And when you don’t have much in life, there isn’t much you’re able to detest before you run out of things to, well, detest. So, Beth chose crust. Michael chose this town. And I chose myself.

Although our relationship is strained, and my daughter is living on the other side of the world, she and I will always be connected. It’s a bond that can never be severed, for the love between a mother and her child is infinite.

“Feeling dead while your body still walks this earth is far worse than being dead.”

It’s easy to become a cynic when you live in a cynical world, where best intentions are not true intentions, where trust feels more like a religion—not one you practice, just one you go along with in case there is a God in the end.

Addiction is like having your arm in a vise. You can’t loosen the grip. You can’t pull away. You just have to learn to live with it.

“I cross-checked Emma Harper’s case file, and it pulled a missing person report.” “For who?” “Charles Gallagher.”

Sometimes you have to lose parts of yourself just to survive.

You’re not the child I wanted, but you’re the one I deserved. –Regretfully, your mother

My mother’s warning comes back to me, but now I understand what she was saying, at least part of it. Your father. He didn’t disappear.

Moments that change us don’t play by the rules of time. They’re everywhere all at once.

It’s one of those embraces that heals a part of you. One that serves as a reminder that love truly can conquer all.