Gone Home✔️

Chapter 12: The Basement - Part One

The area beyond the door didn't look like a basement at all.

I'd expected something like a stairwell descending into the yawning darkness. But it was just more of the same, like the hallway I was standing in. More hardwood floors, white walls. No light, though, and no switch. Sighing, I stepped into the little area. It extended to the right a bit, then turned left and there was the stairwell descending into the yawning darkness. An anti-climax, I guess. In the faded light from behind me, I could even make out more cobwebs, gathered in the corner. Ugh, I hated spiders. I hoped there were none around.

The stairs creaked underneath my feet as I descended the stairwell. I found a drawstring at the small, square landing and pulled it. Merciful light. The walls had an unfinished look to them. Wonderful, I had more stairs to conquer...and an entire basement, too. Well, no guts, no glory. I went down the next stairway.

Through a tiny, closet-sized room and finally I came into the actual basement. Well...this wasn't so bad. Although the floor was bare concrete, the walls were finished and there was proper lighting, or there would be once I turned it on, and a lot of stuff was down here too. It didn't have the feel that other basements did. Although it was sure crammed with a lot of stuff. There was a couch beneath a sheet and some boxes ahead of me, more boxes and a dresser to the left and, surprise!, even more boxes over to the right.

Well, where to start?

There was some evidence of Sam hanging out down here over to the left. A little round table was shoved up in front of the dresser and I found a half-eaten bag of potato chips on the floor, (at least she'd remembered to use the clip this time to keep it closed), another can of soda, Fizz Rite Ginger Ale, and a big, bulky 3-ring binder that was empty but had some papers peeking out from beneath it. Moving the binder aside, I saw that the papers were from Lonnie, to Sam, and another back to Lonnie from Sam. I couldn't help but laugh as I read them.

Basically, Lonnie was thanking Sam for having her over for Thanksgiving, (and making fun of my dad a little, but she was right, he was so awkward around new people), and then apparently Sam went over to Lonnie's for another Thanksgiving. They'd written it all fancy like, with ridiculous dialogue and Sam had even signed it:

Indeed,

Madame Samantha Greenbriar, Esq.

I put them back where they'd been and kept searching. Even this couldn't fully evaporate the awkward fear that was sitting somewhere deep inside me. I kept waiting for something to leap out at me and the occasional rumble of thunder didn't help, either, nor the fact that it was the middle of the night. My next break came only a few feet away. I found a little drawing, a very good one that made me feel warm and happy for Sam. It was a stylized L + S inside of a heart that was also a flower. Man, Lonnie was good at drawing.

They were quite a pair.

There was another journal entry, a note from my little sister to me, waiting beneath the wonderful piece of art.

Dec. 8, 1994

"It's Different Now"

It's different now. I mean, we still hang out all the time
like before. But now when nobody else is around...
well, you know. So you COULD say we're dating. But it's
secret. Secret dating? I don't know. I mean I guess
that's the real difference: now, when we get off the
phone, or go home for the night...or it's just quiet and
we're alone...we say "I love you."

"Sam..." I whispered, smiling, feeling something awkward in my throat and tears burning in my eyes, threatening to fall. I wasn't ready to cry, not yet, so I wiped them away and carefully pocketed the journal entry. My little sister was in love. If anyone deserved love and happiness, it was Sam. She'd been through a lot it seemed, and everything was so hard for her...and sometimes it didn't seem fair, because everything seemed so easy for me by comparison. And I knew that she thought that, too. I was so grateful that she never held it against me.