There is no sidewalk landing to the stairs, only the trampled patch of brown grass that always fills with muddy water when it rains. The three concrete steps have been painted countless times, and the chipped edges reveal the various shades of blue, white, and grey they have worn over the years. They lead to a small porch; just enough space for two chairs, a small side table, and various potted plants in different stages of dying. We probably spent a year of our lives out on that porch at night drinking whisky by the light of glowing cigarettes.
The little house is freshly painted an electric green that really upset the neighbors; Galveston’s historic district residents have a certain set of appropriate color choices, apparently. The new coat of paint was a shitty attempt to hide the cracked and termite ridden wood siding, but it upped the curb appeal nonetheless. The cheap screen door whines when you open it, and they never fixed the chips in the front door where someone tried to break in with a crowbar a few years ago. The hallway tile looks funny, since its grout lines don’t run parallel with the oddly angled wall. There’s still a hole in that wall in the shape of your head from our biggest fight that I thought might break us. Each pass by that concavity triggered memories of you in drunken tears, hugging your knees as though they were a loving mother and pounding the back of your head into that wall until it finally caved in and you nestled your head into the depression you left and wept until sleep found you right there on the crooked tile floor.
The bedroom is tiny as ever, but the shelves you built in that odd nook at least add some storage, along with that impossibly small closet. I still can’t believe we spent two years sleeping in a twin bed together there. I remember the day someone gave us their king size; it barely fit through the door, and it just barely squeezed into the room to where the door would still open. We rolled around on that bed for hours marveling at its enormity and giggling in delight of simple pleasures.
The living room wall is still riddled with all of the holes from the dart board you’d promised to fix before we moved out. It was a bad idea from the start, but I don’t regret a single laugh at my badly thrown darts that landed in drywall; every hole in that wall was a night spent in playful competition, you trying to guide my arm from behind and me never learning.
In the kitchen between the back door and the fridge is the little nook that I once broke down sobbing in because we’d forgotten to buy eggs and I had already started making cookie dough. You came inside and found me weeping and couldn’t help but laugh at my absurdity. You scooped me up with a soft forehead kiss and poured me into the car to go get a damn carton of eggs, assuring me that it was, in fact, not the end of the world.
Every other corner and crevice of our little green house is overflowing with memories, sweet and somber. Out of all the homes I’ve lived in throughout my 24 years, this is the one I remember most. I remember how cold those tile floors would get, with the wind whipping under the raised house in the winter. I remember the lizards that would always come in under the back door through the gap you could see daylight through. I remember the weekend we spent digging up the back yard so I could have a garden, and the both of us almost passing out from heat exhaustion in the Texas summer heat. I remember every light switch and all the sounds of an old house creaking in the night. That house became a part of our story, and we truly made that house our home. I’m glad to have continued our journey, but our first home will always be a nagging spot of nostalgia.