What started as a routine parent-teacher meeting turned into an emotional rollercoaster when I saw my six-year-old’s artwork. Page after page revealed the same house, drawn in uncanny detail. My blood ran cold when I realized my daughter might’ve uncovered my deepest secret.
I thought I’d never see that house again, but there it was, staring back at me from a stack of construction paper, rendered in crayon with the kind of detail that made my stomach drop to my shoes. “The detail is really amazing,” Mrs. Traynor said as she laid out more of Ava’s drawings.
Her voice had that sing-song quality teachers use when they’re trying to be encouraging. “Most kids will draw a pretty basic house,” Mrs. Traynor continued, “but your daughter seems to have an artist’s eye.
Or perhaps an architect’s eye.”
I nodded like one of those bobblehead dolls you see in car windows. What else could I do? Until moments ago, this had been a regular parent-teacher conference, one of those early-year check-ins where everyone smiles too much and talks about potential.
Then Mrs. Traynor had pulled out Ava’s drawings. A folder full of them, all showing the same house.
I recognized it at once. A white house with green shutters, a wraparound porch that seemed to stretch on forever, and a tall oak tree with a tire swing that had seen better days. Every line, every shadow, every detail was exactly as I remembered it from 25 years ago.
My mind raced with fractured memories that I’d spent years trying to forget: my fingers fumbling as I dialed 911, the howling sirens when the ambulance arrived… cold hallways, the weight of my suitcase, and later, my mother’s hard stare as she kneeled to meet my gaze and told me to never tell anyone about that house. How could Ava be drawing that house? There was only one photo of it, locked away with the rest of my childhood secrets in a suitcase I hadn’t opened in years.
Ava couldn’t have found that photo. Could she? “Is everything okay?” Mrs.
Traynor’s voice cut through my spiral of panic. I looked up at her, forced what I hoped was a convincing smile, and nodded again. “Yes, sorry.
Just amazed by her talent, that’s all.”
We concluded the conference with the usual pleasantries about Ava’s progress in math and reading, but I barely heard a word of it. My heart was beating so hard I was sure Mrs. Traynor could hear it echoing off the classroom walls.
I rushed home with Ava’s drawings clutched in my sweaty palm, my heart lodged firmly in my throat. When I got home, I absentmindedly greeted Mark, my husband, and hugged Ava, who was sprawled on the living room floor with her coloring books. But my mind was elsewhere, racing with questions I didn’t want to answer.
I mumbled something about needing to find something upstairs and hurried to the attic. The narrow wooden steps creaked as I climbed into the dusty space where we kept our Christmas decorations and old college textbooks. I moved some boxes aside until I found what I was looking for: a battered old suitcase with corners held together by duct tape.
My hands trembled as I opened it. Inside was a collection of artifacts from a childhood I’d tried so hard to forget: a stuffed rabbit covered in stains, a few books with pages falling out, and a broken music box. But the only thing that mattered in that moment was the photo tucked away in the silk lining.
Mom had forced me to get rid of nearly everything from that time, but I’d hidden this photo so well, she’d never found it. I pulled it out with shaking fingers. There was the house from my daughter’s drawings, exactly as she’d rendered it.
My younger self sat on that wraparound porch, grinning at the camera as I clutched my stuffed rabbit. A woman in her 30s sat beside me, also smiling. A tear coursed down my face, and I wiped it away.
I’d been so happy in that photo, but that happiness had been ripped away just days after it was taken. One terrible accident, one ambulance ride, and my whole world had been turned upside down. I had to know what Ava knew about that place.
I went back downstairs with the photo. Ava was still in the living room, now working on a picture of what looked like a rainbow. She was humming softly to herself, completely unaware that her drawings had just turned my world upside down.
“Honey,” I said, sitting down beside her on the carpet. “Have you been playing in the attic?”
She shook her head without looking up from her coloring. “I’m not allowed in the attic alone.”
“That’s right.” I forced myself to smile.
“Your teacher showed me your drawings today. They’re very beautiful. It seems like you really enjoy drawing houses.”
“The teacher says we should draw things that make us happy,” Ava said matter-of-factly.
“So I drew my friend Ben’s house.”
I swear my heart skipped a beat. “Ben, your friend from school?”
Ava nodded, switching to a purple crayon. “Daddy takes me there when he has video meetings.” She lowered her voice to a whisper, like she was sharing a secret.
“Daddy’s meetings are very boring. I can’t make noise, and I can’t call him if I want a snack, so I go to Ben’s house instead.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said. Mark worked from home, so he was in charge of school drop-off and pickup, as well as keeping an eye on Ava after school.
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