The House on Maple Street
The screen door on Maple Street had a voice of its own, a tin-throated screech that announced every coming and going in our house like a herald too tired to care about dignity. My mother oiled the hinges every spring with whatever she had on hand—cooking oil once, when the proper can of WD-40 wasn't in the budget—and every spring, by the time the fireflies came out in June, the screech had returned, stubborn as a weed. I grew up measuring the hours of my childhood by that sound. Three screeches in the morning meant my father had left for the Dunmore plant before the sun had fully committed to rising. One screech around four meant my mother was hanging laundry on the line, the basket balanced against her hip, three wooden pins clamped between her lips like a seamstress holding needles. And two screeches, quick and uneven, after seven in the evening, meant Dad was home, dragging the smell of machine oil and cigarette smoke through the kitchen, his lunch pail swinging empty at his side.
I was eight that summer, the one I remember most clearly, though looking back now I understand that memory is a liar of sorts—it keeps the moments it loves and lets the rest dissolve like sugar in…
