Closed Doors

I never knew which doors in the house were going to be closed and why they were closed.  When I visited Kyle’s house, all the doors were open except for when someone was using the bathroom, changing clothes or sleeping.  Other than that, all the rooms were fair game.  Kyle’s house had such a different vibe than mine that sometimes I forgot how to act.  In my house, I often had to slink around the rooms trying not to make any noise while no one at Kyle’s house seemed to worry if they made noise or not.  If you made too much noise and woke up the baby, you weren’t really in trouble, but you had to help put the baby back to sleep. 

I was always happy to go to Kyle’s house and sad to leave.  It was the only home I knew how to laugh in and in my house always made me cry.  Closed doors at my house meant something was wrong or something was happening that I knew I didn’t want to be around.  When there were too many closed doors at the same time, I knew it was time to take a walk.  I was sixteen before I knew life was going to be all right.  I came home from school and found all the doors open and the windows clean.  This could only mean one thing.  I was free.  My grandfather was back in jail where he belonged and I could finally breathe.