Buying the house took a leap of faith. Not that they hadn't bought houses before. This was their third. But this one was different. Before they had always said ``If one of us stops working we'll still be able to make the payments.'' But now that was no longer true. It would take two full time jobs for the rest of their working lives to pay for their splendid new home.
The house was large, painted an unassuming greyish beige. A two story front entrance arched in what was possibly a Byzantine style. A great chandelier illuminated the entrance hall with its curving staircase...
They did not discuss the riskiness of their situation. They had bought into America. They owned the dream. Don was thirty-seven, Rose thirty-nine. The kids were eleven and seven. They had a dog named Splodge and a cat named Yellow Cat.
They were a happy family. They were good people.
Or so they thought until the walls began to speak.
There are few people on the earth who have done nothing in their lives for which they are either embarrassed or ashamed. Often small things, petty even, but nonetheless, not things you wish to acknowledge, especially to your nearest and dearest.
So when the walls of the pristine new house began to speak to Don and Rose, to remind them of certain transgressions in their past, their lives became hell.
When Rose told her eleven year old daughter that her jeans were too tight the north wall of the dining room said ``When you were her age - do you remember your uncle Dave putting his hand on your thigh? Do you remember you didn't want him to stop?''
Rose looked at her daughter. Did she hear the wall speak? Yes, obviously.
Then it was Dave's turn. Stealing his father's marijuana. Beating up the gay in the K-Mart restroom. Cheating on his SATs. The walls went on and on.
Don and Rose were desperate. If they sold the house they had just bought they would lose a lot of money. Don thought burning it down would be a good idea, but it would be hard to pull off. Besides, as Rose said, they were not bad people, no matter what the walls said. If they burned the house they would become bad.
Don and Rose called their children into the house. They sat down together at the dining room table. They told their children that they were good people. They had done very little that was bad in this life, and much that was good. If the walls told the truth about them there was nothing they could say that would truly hurt them, so they would just continue to live in the house let the walls say what they may.
The two children hugged their parents. The walls were silent.
They never spoke again.