is worse than the suffering itself.
— Paulo Coelho
I took a walk in the rain and am now soaked to the skin and shivering on the verandah of a Victorian house.
I could have taken an Uber but I needed to clear my head and sort my feelings—yeah, Evelyn does that to me whenever I see her.
I love the girl but she turned down my marriage proposal once and although I often end up nursing hurt feelings, once in a lifetime is bad enough and to ask her again would just be pitiful.
But the whole situation is playing with my mind. I mean, here I am, wet and chilled, sheltering from the rain when I could be getting on with my life.
Instead, I’m sheltering on a verandah in the night listening to voices and I’m not sure if they’re from within my head or this old house is haunted.
One thing I do know is that I seem to be overhearing an intimate conversation between parents who have lost a son in the second world war.
Yeah, sounds insane…and maybe I am, but I hear the voices start up again.
“He’s not coming back, Walt.”
“We’ll make it through, Bess—somehow we’ll make it through”
I scarcely breathe. The voices are faint, indistinct, like the dry rustle of leaves. I should be terrified, but I’m not. My ears strain to hear more.
“The house too, Walter—what are we going to do?”
“What we have to do, Love. What we always do.”
I listen, transfixed, holding my breath, but the voices are gone. I’m alone in a vast forest of sounds.
Later that night, I’m back in my apartment and out of my wet clothes. I boil the kettle for instant coffee and open my laptop. I Google the house.
There’s a Globe and Mail newspaper article written by Evelyn. She compares the Dooley Estate to the abandoned farmhouse in Joyce Kilmer’s poem, The House With Nobody in it.
I feel a chill run up my spine. What the hell is going on here?
She writes about her fondness for the house—how she always wanted to live in it. Then she says, a part of her is stuck there:
It hurts me to look at the crumbling roof and the shutters fallen apart,
For I can't help thinking the poor old house is a house with a broken heart.
Now, this is more than a coincidence—it feels like Fate is calling out to me.
I look at the clock—past eleven—too late to phone. I pick up anyway and punch in Ev’s number. She answers right away.
“Hey Ev, it’s Richard—hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Richard—what a coincidence! I was watching the rain and wondering if you made it home without getting too wet.”
“Yeah, I’m fine Ev. You know that article you wrote about the Dooley house—what’s the back story on the people?”
“It’s a tragic tale. Walter and Elizabeth Dooley lost the house during the Depression. Then, they were just getting back on their feet when their only son, Peter, was killed in the War. He piloted a Lancaster bomber over Germany.”
“That’s brutal,” I say huskily, trying to hide my sadness thinking of these poor parents.
“Well, some good came out of it, I suppose. The couple stayed together and used their money to buy back the Rosedale mansion and used it as a center for rehabilitating returning soldiers.”
“So, why is it vacant?” I ask.
“After their deaths, the property reverted to the city. It was going to be used as a center for the handicapped, but those plans fell through. Last I heard, it was going to be put up for sale.”
“That’s good—isn’t it?”
“Not really—the Dooleys specified the property be maintained for charitable or residential use only, unless a buyer for it couldn’t be found. The city wants to sell it to a developer. I’d buy it myself if I could afford it.”
“Look Ev—it’s late, but can we meet tomorrow and talk? I’ve got something to share with you.”
“Sure. We’ll meet at the bar.”
I told Ev about the voices—strangely, she wasn’t surprised.
“Something happened out there on the porch, Ev—feelings awakened in me I never knew I had.”
“What kind of feelings?”
I sigh deeply, but have to tell her.
“Hearing Bess and Walter talk about their dreams for the future—the house they built—It did something to me. And then, hearing those dreams come crashing down, and still they carried on—I don’t know—it was life-changing.”
“I didn’t think you cared much about feelings, Richard.”
“I don’t—I didn’t… until that moment.Something broke inside me.”
I tried to refocus—to gather my thoughts.
“It was as if someone pushed a pause button, Ev, and my life stopped. I listened to Walter and Bess—their struggles and pain—and suddenly, wasn’t afraid any more. I wanted to feel like they felt—to live fully through joy and through pain.”
She stared at me, saying nothing.
“I know it sounds stupid—but I figured if I didn’t feel too much, I wouldn’t get hurt too much. The trouble was, I wasn’t living life at all—just watching emotions pass by and not getting involved.”
“Was that what happened to us?”
“I think so.”
She nodded, as if what I said tallied with her thoughts.
“I don’t want to be that way anymore,” I said.
“I’m glad, Richard.” Her eyes were shining.
One conversation rarely changes a life—although, in my case, what I overheard was the catalyst for a series of thought adjustments that eventually changed mine.
Ev and I finally clicked—and this time, she didn’t refuse.
We bought the Dooley Estate. It seemed appropriate—Walter and Bess, and me and EV—we’re joined somehow.
Now the rainstorms we watch are from our front porch, with the city lights milky and blurred by rain, and the sounds of rustling leaves, faint and indistinct.
We’re sentimental people, Ev and I. We’ve grown attached to the place