The House That Needed Us

The house breathes wrong.

First thing you notice. Not the listing price that makes you check twice, three times. Not the realtor's Xanax smile, too wide, fingers trembling on her Samsung Galaxy. The breathing. Wet. Labored. Like lungs full of tar and memory.

Four hundred a month. Furnished.

The realtor's acrylic nails tap against her phone screen. Tap tap tap. She doesn't go past the threshold.

"Previous tenants?" you ask.

"Relocated." Her smile stretches wider. Botox keeps her forehead still. "The house has character."

Character. The roof wheezes when wind touches it. Shingles lift and settle like scales on something reptilian. The front door hangs wrong, twenty degrees off true, jaw unhinged mid-scream. Victorian bones under vinyl siding. A McMansion grandfather that died poor.

You sign the lease with Alex balanced on your hip. Three months old. Ten pounds of need wrapped in Target clearance onesies. The pen is a Bic, blue ink already fading. Your signature looks like someone else's.

Click.

First night. You inventory what came furnished: a crib that costs more than your car, cherry wood with hand-carved spindles. Restoration Hardware bedding you'd pinned on Pinterest back when you believed in futures. A glider that moves without being touched. Just a little. Just enough.

Alex watches the ceiling fan. His eyes track its rotation like he's decoding messages. Forty-three rotations per minute. You count because counting is what you do now instead of sleeping. The blades cut through air that's too thick, too warm for October.

The house introduces itself slowly.