Home in April
By A.D. Newcomer

On a sunny day in April, a young man picked daffodils in the backyard of his new home, which was a very old house in a tiny seaside village. His wife gave birth that day to a beautiful boy with golden hair. They brought him home to the new old house, to his very own room with walls of blue, and to people who loved him. He was born an artist, and a writer.

Time passed. The boy grew up, grew taller and stronger and more handsome. He ventured forth on his own, knowing that he was still loved. Still a writer, still an artist. He wandered to many places. He danced a jig in Ireland and floated on a gondola down a canal in Venice. He saw brave matadors and an angry bull in sunny Spain. He looked up at the snow-capped mountains of Tibet, and touched the ice sculptures gleaming in the sun during a crisp Quebec winter day. He wrote elaborate stories and painted lively pictures of all he saw and experienced on his travels, all the things that seemed to be missing from his tiny seaside village.

One day, many years later, he found that he was homesick. That for all the grandest of stories and liveliest of pictures his travels had given him, he longed now for his room with walls of blue. The people who loved him had long since left the old house, but the memory of it had not left the boy.

So he returned to the house on another sunny day in April. He passed the daffodils in the sunny garden, went up the front steps, and into…a dark, empty kitchen. The house was quiet and still…until suddenly, a tiny bell sounded from the top of the stairs. He looked up to find a tiny kitten that the tiny bell was attached to. The kitten vanished round the corner and down the upstairs hall.

The boy followed, down the hall and into his blue room, to find that there was a beautiful girl sleeping, in his room with walls of blue. He woke her up, for she had been sleeping too long. She was surrounded by cats.

“Come home,” the girl said. Who was she? the boy wondered. Was she a girl, or a ghost… or an angel? He didn’t know. She wore gossamer skirts and had hair like lush brown velvet. Her face was pale like cool china.

“Come home,” she said, “just for a little while.”
“I might not stay,” said the boy.
“That’s ok,” she said, and she meant it.

So he stayed there awhile, with the girl (or ghost or angel) in the old house, and many things happened.

They lit the dark kitchen with candles, making shadows dance. The girl brightened the dim corners with her smile. Waffles were made and music was played. The cats frolicked in the daffodil-speckled yard. Art just happened. Craft became necessary; the tiny kitten lost her bell, so they fashioned a new necklace for her out of seashells. Brilliant thoughts occurred. He wrote some down; he was a writer. The boy felt at home. And when he wasn’t writing, he told the girl stories.

He told her about all the times he had growing up in the house. He told her about skinning his knee in the driveway. He told her about how he and his brother wanted to swing from the chandelier, but couldn’t find a chair tall enough to get to it. He told her about the time he and his sister made puppets out of felt, and stage sets out of cardboard and paper, and turned the kitchen table into a theater. He told her about birthday parties and hide-and-seek games in the yard and happy shouts and good cries and more, much more.

He told her about his family, how often there was understanding… and how, once in awhile, it seemed that nobody understood anything. He told her about how his parents made rules and broke rules, how some of the rules were silly, but some were not. He told her about the fights he and his sister had, especially the one where the vase broke. But always there was love and always there was faith. He remembered that.

There seemed so many memories that he had never thought about until he told the stories. He had been so busy lately, out in the world.

They built a whole other house with his memories, in their hearts. He began to realize that the old house the girl now lived in would never be his again. The girl knew he would always need to be able to get home, so she listened to his memories until he had built walls with them, walls around his heart to always keep him safe, to always give him a home. He did not forget to add a door that opened out into the world. He did not forget to add windows to let the light from new memories stream in. The girl knew he would not forget. And so his home was complete.

Yet another sunny day in yet another April came, although the boy wondered if any time had passed at all. He was still in the house, to wake up the beautiful girl in the blue room. She was still surrounded by cats.

But he knew it was time to go. There were new memories to make, and a new house to find. The girl smiled a gentle smile, then wished him well, and she meant it. And so the boy, taking the home he had built in his heart, and all the happiness he could fit inside it,
made his way to new adventures.

He never did find out whether she was a girl, or a ghost… or an angel. But he was always glad just the same that he had found her, sleeping there inside his room with walls of blue, and the yellow daffodils just outside, in the sunny garden.