What Comes Home

Your father has died and left you his house, the first home you and your wife have ever owned. You move in with a baby on the way, and it is still full of his things: home videos, a cigar box, a family Bible with one name scratched out. Each one puts you back on this same piece of land as somebody’s son, in 1986, in the Depression, in the first winter anyone spent here.

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A first-person story. Free. Keyboard and mouse, or a phone held sideways. Headphones recommended.

An old oak behind a low ranch house. Below the ground line its roots run down through buried rooms.
Down through the years
Lauren unpacking in the kitchen, seen through a doorway past moving boxes.

Today

“He kept everything, didn’t he.”

A long table set for the rehearsal dinner.

The wedding

“I’m coming. Wouldn’t miss it.”

Two boys in a bedroom in 1986.

1986

“It’s warm. Why’s it warm?”

A father holding out a toy airplane.

The fifties

“Soft feet, baby.”

A man on a farmhouse porch.

The Depression

“Every time I send you down there, we lose a field.”

A man at a desk in a study.

The 1850s

“It’s too high, Mister Tom.”

A cabin, a woodpile and a young oak in snow.

The first winter

“Spring’s coming. We only have to meet it.”

A camp beside a creek at dusk.

Before anyone built here

“And stay this side of the stones.”

A streak of light coming down through a night sky.

The night the star fell

What Comes Home Play in your browser

Free. Keyboard and mouse, or a phone held sideways. Headphones recommended.

A note before you play: the story is about fathers who were not there, and a couple deciding whether to have a child.