My father once told me that before we moved
into our current house, there had been bloodstains
in the backroom—the one with the glass French doors
that my stepmother would later cover with plastic.
It had been built before I was born next to a
Catholic church, which had been built next to a
slight orange grove. Vibrant trees and plain dirt.
The church had owned the house before we did.
My father said maybe someone had given birth
in that room. I laughed and said that maybe
someone had died in it. White paint
the color of curdled milk; a window facing
a brick wall; putrid, soft brown carpet.
What a horrible place to die, I thought.
My parents ripped out the carpet on the first story
first thing, and installed wooden tile by hand.
My father spent hours on his knees grouting each
crevice. I was a year away from my first kiss the
first time I heard about my grandmother’s cousin.
I had spent hours on my knees hoping that God
would still love me after all of this. I was sixteen.
My once-removed great uncle found the sickness in 1986,
likely thin, cold, and surrounded by white walls.
I wonder if they tore up his stain from my grandmother’s
childhood home, too, or if someone out there kept
it framed, in a room I’m still not allowed in. I wonder
what it would be like to sit down with him
one hot June, late morning, out the back door
of the church’s bookstore, shaded by the tree’s arms,
ever reaching towards the heavens. I wonder
what it would be like to share an orange with him.
