The old man sits at the kitchen table, though it is no longer much of a kitchen. The stove doesn’t work, but that is because he no longer bothers with it. The sink drips slowly into a basin, though only because he has let it. A mouse skitters across the counter, but it is no invasion; they are neighbors now. The counters, the floors, the windows—everything is covered in a thin film of dust, grease, and time. But the roof does not leak. The floorboards do not splinter underfoot. The walls are solid, steadfast. The house, he knows, is dirty, but not in disrepair.

This is what he tells himself, anyway. When his daughter stands in the doorway and grimaces, he tells her the same thing. “It just needs a good cleaning,” he says, his voice thin, like the sunlight that filters through the streaked glass of the kitchen window. “The bones are still strong.”

She doesn’t argue, but she doesn’t agree. The bones are frail. She moves through the house as she always does, with a tight jaw and a box of cleaning supplies she knows he will not use. She sweeps away cobwebs from the corners, wipes at the windows, clears the mouse droppings from the counter. But, he notices, she doesn’t touch the bones. Those need no attention. 

The phone rings. He lets it ring. He looks at the stack of unopened mail on the table—bills, notices, circulars. One letter is bright yellow, stamped with block letters: URGENT: FINAL NOTICE. He folds it into a small square and drops it into his shirt pocket. There is no room for urgency here. Nothing is urgent anymore. 

The house smells of dust, mildew, and something faintly metallic. It is the smell of his body, of his breath and his sweat. He knows this. He knows his ankles are swelling and his lungs can’t catch enough air. He knows his memory sometimes flutters out like an untended flame. The doctor has told him what needs to be done. The nurse has told him. His daughter, on the phone, over and over. But the chair he is sitting in is shaped like him now. The walls know his movements. The floorboards sag exactly where he steps. Who will hold him if the house does not?

But there was that one day. That day when the house betrayed him.

It had rained for three days straight, and the stairs to the cellar were slick with moisture. He had gone down there for a reason he could no longer recall—maybe to check the fuse box, or maybe just because the house had called him down, whispering softly through the creak of its beams. On the second step, his foot slipped, and he fell hard, his body bouncing down the narrow staircase like a bundle of dropped laundry. When he landed, it was in an awkward, crumpled heap. The pain in his hip was sharp and unforgiving, and he had laid there for hours, staring at the damp ceiling, the house silent around him.

It had not helped him. It had not softened the floor to catch him or offered up its walls to steady him. It had simply watched him, as though testing his resolve. He had waited there, alone, until his daughter arrived later that evening, pounding on the front door and eventually letting herself in with the spare key she kept on her ring. She had found him and called the ambulance. In the hospital, she told him he couldn’t go back.

But he did.

When he returned, he did not speak to the house for days, and the house did not speak to him. He avoided the cellar and its sharp, unforgiving edges. He moved slower, more carefully, as though the house might strike again, a snake coiled in wait. Yet still, he stayed. He could not leave. A betrayal, yes—but even betrayal is a kind of intimacy.

His daughter comes on Sunday, and she brings a box of groceries he didn’t ask for. She moves through the house like a whirlwind, wrinkling her nose at the smell, throwing open windows. “You need help,” she says. “It’s not safe anymore. You’re not safe.”

He wonders what she means by “safe.” Safe from what? The house has hurt him, yes, but it has also held him. The chair that cradles him, the soft creak of the floorboards, the slow drip of the faucet in the kitchen, those things are safe. 

“It’s filthy in here,” she says, sweeping at the dust with the edge of her sleeve. “You can’t even see through the windows. How can you live in this?”

“Because it’s mine,” he says.

She talks about assisted living, brochures, her own peace of mind. He nods but does not agree. He thanks her but does not promise. When she leaves, she shuts the door harder than she needs to. The sound echoes through the house, but the walls hold.

At night, in bed, he listens to the house breathe with him. The wind whistles through the cracks, the mice scuttle behind the walls, the pipes moan faintly in the cold. These are the sounds of something still alive, he thinks. The house is dirty, yes, but dirt can be wiped away. This is not decay. The walls do not crumble; they embrace. The floorboards do not sag too far; they yield just enough to remember his weight. He closes his eyes, his hands clutching the edge of the blanket like a child holding on to his mother’s skirt. He will not leave but will always return. He will let the house care for him, even if it turns on him again. Even if it forgets its loyalty. Even if the dust grows so thick that he can no longer see and disappears into it. 

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Joseph V. Velaidum has only very recently started writing fiction, and the first of his stories has appeared in WestWord and Anansi (where his story placed third in the Winter 2024-2025 competition). He is now completing his first novella-in-flash. He is a professor at the University of Prince Edward Island (Canada).