A house, a home.

[Certain]

The screen door slammed shut. It always had, ever since Trevor broke through it that Friday to show his dad he had passed cuts. He held his new jersey, all gassed up, a total spaz, and Gerald patted his son on the back and choked a laugh. Lucinda would gloat and brag to her friends about her firstborn's varsity jacket. Jessica rode to his games with the car seat in backward, harnessed and strapped in. Trev broke his left tibia. He limped his ass to the games anyway and held the screen door open fast with his crutch while hopping with the cast. It always slammed.

One bedroom window was sealed with paint congealed on frame. Jess had made the mess when she decided that teal was lame. Pink everything. She and her friends squealed and waved brushes everywhere, not doing much of anything. Jerry touched up best he can, but ultimately the crust would peel and fray. This was life with girls. A tight-lipped world for a father whose stripes were earned the hard way. Lucy would stroke his head at night to calm his nerves, steeled and gray. That damn window never opened, though, fused and locked. And in the summers, Jess wielded complaints that her room was hot.

The den still reeked of smoke. It had become Jerry's asylum when the kids were born. He'd emerge, doused in cheap cologne and act like he'd never been hiding. Dim and warm, the den was a place of peace. Straight release. Pour a Scotch on the rocks, rock in the chair and taste the peat. He smoked Marlboro Reds down to the filters. The full flavors savored fully. Five or six a day, enough to make him weak. He stopped coming down to the den eventually and faced defeat. But the oxygen could only make him breathe so long.

The garden was perfect, though. Lucy would work her hoe to turn the stones and keep her soil fertile. Tomatoes, mostly. She tried zucchini and asparagus, but her family hated both. She slaved to grow fresh fruits and gave them to the neighbors, hoping they'd repay her with baked goods. Trev liked the green peppers. Jess preferred the red. If teens ever agreed, heads would surely explode. Lucy liked the dirt in her toes. She liked the feeling of breathing life into the earth as it grows. After Jerry died, she spent more of her time in the garden, foraging thyme and discarding weeds and spoiled roots. It wasn't long before she was under soil, too.

"So, have you made a decision?"
The agent, smug with the siblings.
"The latest offer was two hundred and fifty."
Jess gave her brother a look, half-puzzled, half-dizzy.
"They want an answer. They want something done quickly."
Trev looked back at the house, with its love and its history.
"Tell them to hold," he said.
"Let's try to get them to double the bidding."