How Bad It Got

Do you remember how bad it got, right before we lost the house? Your back had gone again and that stupid doctor said you weren’t “a good candidate” for any more treatment, like you were running for office, when all we were really trying to do was keep the heat on and buy even a bit of food for the fridge. You stopped going to the basement altogether and warned me: Don’t go down there, Sue, it’s not good for you. I thought you were just embarrassed at how we’d let the place go, and I suppose that has to be a part of it. God, I remember the bills piling up on the mat inside the door like rats. Little fucking rats. But those walls and the mould on them. I had dreams about those walls. To me they were beautiful. I mean, I knew that bits of them had to be floating off into space and ending up in our lungs, I’m not stupid, but all I saw in them was willow trees and mountains and they were such a lovely old shade of brown. It made me nostalgic for things I don’t think ever actually happened to me, you know?