Meeting the Parents

Lila could see the house looming in the distance from the end of the winding drive. Her girlfriend Mari pulled the car over to assure her, before driving the last stretch. Old houses gave her the heeby-jeebies, but it wasn’t the house she was afraid of. It was meeting the parents. “Lila, daahhlin’. Please trust me. They are goin’ to love you. I prawmise.” Mari said. Words spilled out of her lovely girlfriend’s mouth like warm honey. She was everything sunshine, with waves of golden locks, creamy skin and big pleading hazel eyes. According to Mari the house was scarier than the parents. “My mama wouldn’t let us down one hallway when we were little. Aunty Pearls ghost stories still give me creeps.”

“Are your parents prepared for all this?” Lila said pointed at herself and motioning up and down her body. “What on earth do you mean by that?” “Uhhh, well- I am not like you, am I?” Mari looked at her appraisingly. She could feel her ears starting to turn red. She could never quite figure out what Mari saw, but she didn’t want to jinx it by asking.

Mari reached over to Lila and ran her fingers through her short thick wavey mop of black hair and twirled the one curl near her temple in her fingers. She gazed reassuringly into her coffee colored eyes and cupped her face between her hands. Her pail fingers glowed next to Lila’s olive complexion, “Honey, do you think my parents have never met my beaus before?” “My poor Aunty Pearl thought my prom date was a boy! Laura did look good in that tux though”, she said laughing. Lila squared her shoulders and said “Okay, let’s get this over with.”

Mari turned the key in the ignition and added, before turning down the drive “Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure my Mama is still hoping this is a phase, but she would never be unkind.”

Standing on the front steps of the house that could double as a small hotel, was Mari’s parents. Lila could see even from a distance that Mari took after her mother, Caroline. Only upon closer inspection could you see that her hazel eyes and her height were from Jack, and not much else. Mari towered over Lila too, but that didn’t bother her. Having your own personal sun looking down on you was pretty amazing.

As they stepped out of the car, Lila was barely standing upright when she was helped the rest of the way up by two strong hands grasping both shoulders that pulled her into a bearhug that knocked the wind out of her. “Lila!” a deep voice boomed. Jack released her and she smiled up at him managing a “Hi.” with what little air she had left. He looked apologetic. Soon Caroline was standing before her too, grasping both of her hands cooing at her like a baby. “This is Lila. Oh my goodness. Isn’t she just a little piece of caramel? We’re so happy y’all are here.”

They were quickly ushered inside the old house. Walking up the steps Lila felt an odd sensation, but she shook it off. Too many ghost stories in her childhood. She felt like she stepped onto a movie set. After a tour of the first floor, they made their way upstairs stepping into a library full of light and books. The smell of well-loved pages lingered. Mari steered Lila to the hallway that branched off the right of the library. Lila looked to the opposite side of the room to see another hallway that looked dark and uninhabited. The one Mari was tugging her toward was bright and airy. They landed in Mari’s childhood bedroom and found themselves falling onto the bed, exhausted. They snuggled into each other and fell asleep, Mari’s head resting just above Lila’s.

Caroline stood in the doorway of her daughter’s room, admiring her peaceful sleeping face. Lila seemed like a nice enough girl, but she still hoped Mari would meet a nice boy. Then they could finally sell this house and move somewhere quiet and free of ghosts. Lila reminded Caroline of the kid’s nanny, Dana. She tried not to think about her. She knew she had to save Mari. She had done it with Laura when she was trying to convince Mari to run away to Europe and take a gap year and she would do it again. She would visit the room one last time.

Pearl always warned them about that room at the end of the hall. Swore that it swallowed up her cheating boyfriend. There was an old ghost story of a jilted bride that once occupied it. She kept a candle burning in the window for her love, should he return to her. He never did. The tale told around campfires was that any man that entered that room with ill intent would vanish. The curse of the jilted bride. It was a measure of true love. Out of superstition, Caroline put up a baby gate blocking that hallway. She didn’t let her children in that room. What if they were swallowed up?

Caroline was surprised to realize she looked forward to time with nanny Dana. She was very attentive and eager to please. She would rub Caroline's feet when she came home from work and pour her a glass of wine. She waved it off as just things any girlfriend would do but found herself feeling a longing she couldn’t make sense of. And when Jack was home, she resented his intrusion. She felt guilty and confused. One evening, Jack took the kids to visit friends in their old town. She stayed home and shared a bottle of wine with Dana. As they made their way up the stairs to say goodnight Caroline stumbled and Dana caught her. In a blink, soft wine warm lips were on hers, and she melted into what felt like the inevitable. She was dizzy and love drunk. They made their way upstairs and realizing that Dana was pulling her into her family’s hallway, she changed their course to the other direction. Stepping over the baby gate, she thought- Not in rooms her family lived in. Dana reached for the knob of the cursed room. As the door opened, Caroline saw it was just an empty room. A room no one else goes in. A room perfect for keeping secrets. They fell on the dusty floor tangled together. One minute she was holding firmly to a warm body and the next it felt like Dana was dissolving into nothing. She looked at her face and could she her mouth agape but no sound escaped her and then she was dust. Caroline scrambled out the door and shut it behind her. Turns out it wasn’t only men that the room took. In Dana’s room she found schemes to steal from them. She was buttering her up to take what she pleased. Caroline quickly decided to work from home. She didn’t want another nanny. She wanted to forget the whole thing.

Lila woke up and had to pee badly. She carefully extracted herself from Mari’s embrace and wandered down the hall in search of relief. In the library she saw Mari’s mom flipping pages of a book, gave her a quick smile and a wave and ducked into the bathroom nearby. As she exited, she ran right into Caroline. “Oof! Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” Lila mumbled. Caroline brushed it off, waving away her apology and linking her arm in hers. “Did you get a nice nap, love?” “Yes, “Lila sighed, “That bed is like a cloud.” Caroline led them toward the dark hallway she noticed earlier. Caroline flipped on a light and they flickered a bit, casting an ominous feeling down the hall. “This is creepy.” Lila blurted. “Did I say that out loud” she said laughing nervously. “Oh, no! Did Jack tell you that ridiculous story that Aunt Pearl used to go on and on about?” Caroline replied. “No, I just have an active imagination. I read a lot of Stephen King.” She confessed. “Well, he IS scary. Lawd, I couldn’t sleep for a week after reading The Shining when I was pregnant with Marigold!”, said Caroline. She stopped in front of the last room on the left and turned the doorknob. The door swooshed opened unsettling what looked like years of dust. The setting sun glimmered through the sheer drapes catching the dancing dust motes. “See, just a room.” Caroline stated matter-of-factly, “Pearl said this room swallowed up her cheating no good boyfriend. So silly.” She waved her arms as if inviting her to step in the room. “Ya, I’m okay out here.” Lila replied. Caroline looked at her with warm motherly eyes. “Dawling, you are not in a Stephen King novel, “she chuckled. “And even if you were, you don’t fit the bill. You are not up to no good, and you’re a woman. Mari avoids this hallway, but if I tell her you took the whole tour maybe she will relax!” Lila wanted to please Mari’s mom, so she took a deep breath and stepped inside the room.

Inside she felt that same feeling she had felt this morning as she entered the house, but the intensity was oppressive. The room was appraising her. She felt violated and was beginning to see the dust was forming into shapes, that sharpened into bodies with pleading faces. One was a woman that looked unsettlingly like her, but with longer hair and taller. Another was a teenage girl in a tuxedo. The rest were men, a half dozen or so dressed in clothes that dated decades before her time. She looked out into the hallway to see a confused and anxious Caroline. “Are you ok dahlin’?” she drawled, her tiny hands in fists by her sides. She was waiting for Lila to disappear into the dust, but she didn’t. She began to walk toward her to exit the room. A look of horror came over Caroline’s face as she heard her speaking to someone or someone’s other than herself. When she reached the threshold, Caroline tried to push her back in, but Lila was stronger than her. “What are you doing?” she said desperately. “You have to stay inside.” Lila was feeling suffocated and tried to call out for Mari. Grappling to get past her mother, she formed the words but felt like her mouth was full of sand, or more likely dust. She fell into the hallway gasping for air and in the scuffle, Caroline had fallen into the room and faded into dust before her very eyes. She wanted to scream, but she was beginning to see stars and passed out cold.

When Lila came to, she was back in Mari’s perfect bed and Mari was snoring soundly beside her. She thought perhaps she had had a nightmare, but her mouth felt like the desert and when she stood up dust billowed off her and floated out the door. She followed it into the hallway and watched it swirl across the library, down the dark hall and under the door of the forbidden room. It no longer felt menacing. She followed it to the door, but didn’t open it. “Why did you let me leave?” she whispered to the closed door. She heard a sigh as if someone opened a window and a breeze wafted past her. She heard a whispered reply on the wind “Because your love is true.”

No one could explain where Caroline went. Lila didn’t think they’d believe her if she told them the truth. Her disappearance remains a mystery still. Caroline got one of her wishes though. Jack did sell the house and moved far away from the ghosts that live there.