Upstairs
Stepping into the room, Charlie is hit with the realization that out of every space in the house, this is the one in which she is the least familiar. Walking around the room, bigger, really, than she remembers, Charlie draws on a few memories of being in here. Walking over to the far wall, she remembers admiring her Grandma’s porcelain women that sat on her dresser, ornaments from her trips around the world that she used to tell story after story about. Charlie remembers looking through the dishes of jewelry, of picking which ones she would like to wear one day when she was old enough. Spinning her purple stone bracelet around her wrist, she wonders if she had once looked over it as a kid, if she had known 30 years ago that she would wear it one day.
Moving away from the imaginary dresser now, Charlie walks over to the sliding glass door that would let her out to the balcony. As a kid, she was always jealous of her Grandparents having a balcony in their room. As an adult now she wonders how much they really used it.
The balcony overlooks the pack porch and the trees that spread behind it. Charlie's mom never understood what Charlie loved so much about this house, thinking it a tacky piece of work, something that was only a project for her and her parents. But Charlie loved the memories that flitted through it, the laughter that filled the walls, the trees that hugged the house ever so gently.
Charlie had never gone out onto the balcony before. She used to think that it was because she wasn’t allowed to go out there, but now is realizing she had probably just never asked. With the urge to prove something — to whom she has no idea — Charlie moves to go outside. As she reaches for the handle she finds that the door is already cracked open.
Pulling the door open the rest of the way, Charlie checks to see if anyone is on the balcony. Coming up empty Charlie scans trees around her, trying to find any reason that the door might be open already. As she steps fully onto the platform, Charlie looks down to the lower deck, just barely seeing the stairs that go down through the woods. Taking in the space, Charlie sees movement in the trees but can’t place what it exactly is.
Walking to the right side of the porch, to the top of the stairs that lead down, Charlie savors the feeling of being up in the air, connected both to the house and the woods around her. She feels the warm brush of the wind on her arms, smells the pines and foliage that surround her.
Taking the stairs down one at a time, wandering slowly as if there was any direction to go but the next step forward, she makes her way down the stairs. Forgetting she left the sliding door open.