🔴 THE DOG STARTED BARKING WHEN UNCLE RON STARTED SINGING THAT SONG
I slammed the car door, the gravel crunching too loud in the sudden silence that followed.
He smelled like cheap whiskey and mothballs, same as always, but tonight his eyes were different, like little black holes sucking in the light. Then he started humming that old tune, the one Mom used to sing when she rocked me to sleep. The hairs on my arms stood straight up. “Ron, please, not that song,” I begged him, my voice cracking.
Suddenly, the dog started going wild, barking and scratching at the cellar door, a place he usually avoids. He NEVER barks at Ron. It was all so hot and tight, my skin itching, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and something else, something metallic and sharp.
He stopped singing, his eyes unfocused. “She liked that song, you know,” he mumbled, then looked right at me, a strange glint flickering, and asked, “Why did you stop visiting her?”
Then, the cellar door creaked open.
👇 Full story continued in the comments…
The cellar door creaked open with a long, drawn-out groan, revealing not a gaping black void, but a set of damp, concrete steps leading down into a faint, yellowish light. The dog stopped its frenzied barking, replaced by a low, guttural whine, pressing against my legs. The thick, metallic smell intensified, but now I could discern something else beneath it – something clinical, sterile, like disinfectant mixed with the musty air of a basement.
Ron didn’t move, only pointed a trembling finger down the stairs. “Go on,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. “She’s… she’s waiting.”
Hesitantly, propelled by a terrible curiosity and the dog’s nudging insistence, I descended the steps. The air grew cooler, heavier. At the bottom, the small space was sparsely furnished: a narrow cot against one wall, a small table littered with pill bottles and a glass of water, a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling casting a weak, uneven light.
And on the cot, propped up by a pile of pillows, was Mom.
She was thin, terribly thin, her face pale and drawn, her eyes closed. Her once vibrant hair was now sparse and colourless. But it was unmistakably her. My breath hitched, lodging somewhere in my chest.
“Mom?” I whispered, the word barely a sound.
Ron shuffled down the steps behind me, his earlier strange energy completely gone, replaced by a profound weariness. “She… she had the stroke last year,” he mumbled, looking at the floor. “Wanted to stay home. Didn’t want… didn’t want the hospital. Or anyone seeing her like this.” His voice was flat, exhausted. “I converted the cellar. Easier. Quiet.”
It all clicked into place with a sickening lurch. The barking, the song, Ron’s strange eyes, the smell – it was all about her. The dog sensed her presence, perhaps her distress. The song was *her* song, the one that brought back memories, maybe agitated both of them. The metallic tang wasn’t blood or something horrific, but the sharp scent of medicine, illness. Ron’s question, “Why did you stop visiting her?” wasn’t accusatory in the way I’d first thought, but perhaps born of his own isolation and the burden he carried alone. He wasn’t asking why I’d abandoned *him*, but why I wasn’t here for *her*.
Tears welled in my eyes, hot and sharp. “You didn’t tell me,” I choked out, the words thick with shock and a crushing guilt. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
He finally looked up, his eyes no longer black holes, but filled with a deep, heartbreaking sorrow. “Pride, maybe. Shame. Didn’t want to be a burden,” he repeated the familiar litany of reasons people give for suffering in silence. “Thought I could handle it.” He gestured vaguely at the cot. “She asks for you sometimes. When she’s… lucid.”
I sank to my knees beside the cot, reaching out a trembling hand to gently touch Mom’s frail one. It was cool and still. The dog nudged my side, then lay down quietly near the cot, letting out a soft sigh.
“I’ll stay,” I said, looking up at Ron through my tears. “I’ll help.”
A flicker of something – relief, maybe, or just the easing of an unbearable tension – crossed his face. The cellar air still smelled of damp earth and medicine, but the sharp, metallic edge had softened, replaced by the heavy, quiet reality of a shared secret, a hidden suffering, and the unexpected, difficult path that lay before us now.