My key used to fit into your door in a particular way. It was lightly bent, and it didn't work more often than it did. My father offered to have it fixed, but I refused. I still remember just how to twist my hand to make it behave and let me in.

Your hallway smelled like fresh laundry and old books. I remember the way your pale, fading wallpaper felt underneath my hands—chalky in a way I didn't quite like, but couldn't stop touching. My fingers traced oily patterns into your walls, like paintings.

There was a bowl in your pantry just for me, full of treats I would have never chosen to buy, until there wasn't. One day, I came over and the bowl was empty. It hurt, partly because I couldn't go back to being that child you bought little chocolates for, but mostly because growing up just hurts, and the bowl would never be full again.

You had the world's oldest and most comfortable sofa in your dining room. It was so frail I was afraid it wouldn't hold my weight, but I took the best nap of my life there. One day, I came over to find you there in pain, and I knew that was the beginning of the end.

Your bedroom was off limits, until it wasn't. I didn't like coming in, because I knew you didn't like me coming in. In the end, you would send me there to collect your belongings when you couldn't do it yourself anymore. I was thirty years old and I felt like a naughty child, going through your drawers.

Your place doesn't exist anymore—someone else lives there now, with none of your books or your furniture or your pictures. The door is the same, but my broken key doesn't fit it anymore. I will never see that place again, but in my dreams it continues to exist, and the walls are still thin and chalky, and you still roam the rooms.

For fifteen years, you haunted your own home like a ghost, always waiting for something. Now, I will haunt it in your stead, for the rest of my time.