249 - arrow

im found some of the muscle memory coming back to him. The streets looked different and unfamiliar now. The curvature of the paths they took, though, remained unchanged. Before he knew it, his pickup had arrived at a spot that he still recognized.

The tires dug slightly into the curb as the truck came to a halt. Just as always, he thought to himself. Ahead of him, he spotted a large, clean, and new SUV parked on the other side of the driveway.

Tim thought his sister's car looked out of place in a neighborhood like this. Too shiny, too modern. At least his truck fit in here. He dared not consider that he might be the slightest bit envious of her success as he pulled the keys out of the ignition, swinging opening the slightly-rusty door in a jerky fashion.

The air smelled familiar, making Tim feel some kind of way, although he was certain he could not quite call it nostalgic. As he rounded the hood of his truck and started toward the house, he saw his niece appear on the porch.

"Uncle Tim, you made it!" called out the little girl, smiling and waving. Tim returned both the smile at the wave.

"Little Lizabean, goodness me! You just don't stop growing, do you?" Tim exclaimed, picking her up and giving her a hug. Tim knew it was a bit of a required formality to remark on the relentless pace of a child's growth, but he meant his words. He saw his nephew and nieces a handful of times a year if he were lucky, and the changes were always stark.

"Where's your mom?" Tim asked.

"She's upstairs," Liza answered plainly, swinging the screen door open and going inside. Without much consideration, Tim followed her. However, as soon as he crossed through the entryway, a strange feeling washed over him.

The though of having a niece seemed inconceivable, as he was a child again himself. Nothing about this place had changed in the intervening decades, to the point where stepping into it had transported him through time.

The sounds of Liza bounding up the steps, though, broke Tim's trance. He was back in the present. "Mom, Uncle Tim's here!" he heard Liza call out as he made his own way to the staircase, albeit at a much slower pace. He heard no response from his sister.

The stairs creaked under his feet the same as they ever did. There was a technique which allowed for a silent ascent or descent. He had perfected it during long summer days, when he had felt trapped in this place. Now the invisible path for silent footfalls had long been forgotten, and Tim wondered why he had ever felt the need to learn it in the first place.

He saw Liza scamper from one of the bedrooms, across the hallway to another. Tim and his sister had done the same, in their time. Somewhere in the house, he could also hear the voices of Liza's sister and brother. The walls were alive again, for the moment at least.

Tim felt drawn to the master bedroom at the end of the hallway. He was not surprised to find his sister in this room as well. She was sitting at the edge of the bed, her legs now too long to leave her feet dangling in the air. She turned and looked at Tim as he stepped through the door.

"Hey," she said in a way that indicated not just a weariness, but a complete impossibility of enthusiasm.

"Hey," he shot back with a bit more energy. He noticed how her face betrayed hours of crying, even if at the moment she seemed composed. He wondered if the skin surrounding his eyes told a similar tale.

He sat down next to her on the bed. The bed that used to seem impossible large. The air in the room felt heavy and still.