On Halloween, we drive to the house for the last time. Laurie and Dana are standing on the curved driveway as we pull up in the late afternoon, by the Sold sign and the bench we took family photos on.
The house is empty now. The green walls are painted blue, the brown ones white. I put my bag down on the bed in Aliti’s room, the guest room, the twins’ room, Dana and Laurie’s room, my favorite room. There’s nothing left in here but the bed, not even curtains on the windows. I can see right out onto the orange tree and spot a few green fruits that will ripen and color in a few months. By then, the new owners will have put new curtains up. The house is theirs on Election Day.
Last time I was here, it was August, peak summer heat. I brought my friends Eleanor and Lauren for a day by the pool. Between dives, Eleanor and I took turns standing on a chair trying to reach the peaches growing just over the fence in the neighbor’s yard. (We stopped at a fruit stand along the river bank on the way back to the city instead.) Between laps, I told stories and shared memories about the house. I talked about regretting not having brought more friends here for a swim. The whole day, I kept saying that I’d likely come back again, but that it it’s possible this would be my last time here as it, as my grandmother’s house, as the house of my childhood. And it was. This is no longer that house.
On November 1st, in the early afternoon once the sun has warmed up the cement underfoot, I head outback. I can hear someone plucking away at the piano inside, just out of sight through the family room windows. I’m supposed to be helping with chores, but I've ignored them to come take a final cleansing dip.
Standing on the diving board, I watch my shadow wiggle and ripples below me, along the bottom of the pool, where we used to throw pool toys and random objects, just to go diving after them. The water is a shock to the system when I dive in; I come up gasping for breath - but smiling, laughing even, and jump right back in. After another length or two, I lie out on the stripped bath towel that always lived in the downstairs bathroom, and shiver a bit until the sun rays soak in again and dry me off. The grapes along the pool fence are withered and wrinkled now, dark purple turned black. They’ve turned to raisins on the vine, dried out by the Sacramento heat. I pick a few and rinse off their dust and cobwebs in the pool. I peel the skin off one by accident, the whole papery black sack comes off in one piece and leaves a brown slimy thing attached to the bunch. As kids, we'd spend ages sitting on the edge of the pool, eating grapes and spitting out the skin, laughing. Now, I always think of the quote about “eating the grape and spitting out the skin” from Death of a Salesman, even though I know I’m misremembering the passage. I think it’s about an orange.
In the evening, as dusk settles in, we write goodbye and thank you letters to the house. We sit on the porch, on the wooden bench and around the crepe myrtle tree and read our letters to one another, laughing and crying in turn. Then, we walk around to the backyard. We each take turns burying some ashes the foot of every tree - the persimmon, the plum, the orange, the fig, and the grape vines, too. Someone cracks a good joke about the orange tree, but I’ve forgotten it. It’s solemn, and quiet, and emotional, and delicate work. It’s grown dim by then, so we move by candle light. Above the empty dove nest in the grape leaves hangs a lone persimmon - round, orange, shiny, and ripe.
Then, I visit the house in my dreams. In the first, just a few days after the house is gone, we’re standing around the curved drive way when someone walks up and says his great-grandma used to live here. I show him inside, and walk him through the house, pointing out the renovations my grandparents made over the years. In the next, I’m standing in the kitchen, clearing out the cupboards. Baca asks me to save a salt shaker from the pile of things in the panty. In one, we’re putting the house on wheels to drive it north, to Bodega Bay. I sit in the big blue barber chair as the house starts moving, and things come tumbling down around me. The house-on-wheels gets stuck in the middle of Alta Drive, and I wake up before we decide what to do next. In another, Baca stand at the mouth of the hallway and tell us she’s dying, that she’s here to say goodbye, and in our frantic rush to gather everyone, we miss the moment and she fall down, stiff and straight. These are the fragments I remember, out of order. At first the dreams feel sequential, orderly, as if my subconscious is letting go of the house piece by piece, and then they loose structure. In what might have been the last, I stand across the street in Laurie’s front yard, Baca's house hidden from view by the giant pine tree, and I know I can no longer cross the street.
Now, it’s July 4th again. A whole year has come and gone since the last, and I marvel at the passage of time. I’m on the train the Sacramento, the train I used to take with Lucien when we were young and in a hurry for Christmas celebrations to begin, eager to be at Alta as soon as school let out. I finally type this up, this epilogue I’ve been meaning to write for a year. There is a 4th of July party on Alta Drive again this year, but I won’t be attending. I’m here to celebrate with friends instead, with a day at the river. I don’t want to see the house quite yet; I’m not ready for that. I prefer visiting in my dreams.
Some fun news! I will be reading The Last Persimmons at a literary reading on August 2nd. I’m excited, and nervous, to share this writing with a wider audience, and flattered to have been selected. You’re invited to drop by the free virtual event, which starts at 6 p.m. RSVP here, hope to see you there!