A perfect house.
That’s how we’d like to remember our childhood home. What was yours like? Was it full of joy and laughter? Well, mine… mine felt like a shell. Smooth and spotless on the outside, hollow on the inside. Treading a fine line between whole and shattered.
My family was as stereotypical as they came. A navy man for a father. A devoted wife for a mother. Topped off with an annoyingly overbearing sister. And then there’s me, the son—every Asian family’s pride and joy.
But things were never as perfect as they seemed.
The house was big, too big for the four people that resided within. A two-story house with four white walls, made even whiter with artificial fluorescent lighting. Always cold to the touch from 24/7 air-conditioning because my father could not stand the sweltering Singaporean heat.
At the same time, it felt ironically small. Rooms full of the latest gadgets and oriental antiques. A grotesque contradiction of aesthetics. It didn’t matter. My father was chasing his “American Dream.” Always seeking the next big thing. Always yearning for symbols that showcased wealth. Whatever his friends had, he had to have it, and more. He even built a partition wall in the middle of the house just because his friend had one. How unnecessary.
Of all the things he bought, his prized possession was, strangely, a gate. Flown in straight from America. The gate made a distinct sound when it opened, a cross between screeching cats and cymbals clashing. In a quiet and quaint neighborhood, the jarring noise was like a person sneezing in the library. My mum hated it, but my father loved the attention. It was an announcement for his departure and arrival, like trumpets greeting royalty. The gate was the ultimate symbol of American wealth: a gated community. Yet, he wasn’t satisfied. Always chasing.
And soon, he started chasing another woman.
My mum found out a couple of months later. It shattered our family. Screams bounced off the pristine white walls encompassing the house. There was no escape. The adults tried to pacify my sister and me with a new television and a locked door. It didn’t work. The yelling seeped through the floors.
Bags were packed, but no goodbyes were said. I remember naively asking, “Papa, where are you going?” No response. Not even an awkward nod you’d give to a stranger. He just walked out the gate. I stood there, speechless. My five-year-old brain understood, but my heart didn’t want to believe it.
We were abandoned.
Adjusting was tough on my mum. Sitting alone in the dreary darkness, my mum leaned against the wooden banister and sobbed. This was a daily occurrence. Cracks in the walls started to form from the drilling in the construction site down the road. Unsure of what to do, my mum’s solution was to hide the cracks with paint. The three of us splashed paint everywhere in unbridled rebellion. Walls were painted randomly with no forethought. Before we knew it, the house was a messy mismatch of pink, green and blue. We were new to this, still in the infancy of our independence.
A lot has changed since then.
Now, my mum is a minimalist, or so she claims. A couple of years after my father left, she discovered the wonders of Marie Kondo. Bags filled with clutter cluttered the hallways. And in her frenzy, she even tore down the useless partition wall to achieve that “clean” open house concept. Large floor-to-ceiling glass windows replaced the dingy walls on both ends of the house.
A new breath of wind and light now fills the house.
The luscious smell of freshly baked bread from a new bakery down the street mixes around with the aroma of morning coffee. The warm rays of the morning sun engulfs the living room, painting the walls a soft shade of orange. My mum’s laughter prances down the hallway, filling the minimalistic house with enough energy to replace the furniture she got rid of. The house has aged a little over the years, with her wrinkles showing on the exterior walls. But her insides are entirely different.
Still, the gate remains.
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