Both feet securely planted inside the house, I let go of the black lacquer door, and the mere weight of it forces it to close before I can even finish my exhale. The sound of the doors banging back together booms through the home, echoing out from where I stand to fill the entryway with a pitch loud enough to match its grandeur. I can almost see it bouncing around, this sound, passing through me on its way to be tossed about by the opulent furnishings – from me to the grand double staircase, reflecting off its polished brass railings, sending itself back towards the doorway and hitting the frames of the family portraits that hang there, dashing across the floor – which, now that I look at it, seems to be one singular piece of marble – before ultimately pitching itself up towards the ceiling, left alone to dissipate as it jumps between a set of sparkling crystal chandeliers – there are three of them, identical, aligned in a row which guides my eye out from the entryway, through the two sides of the staircase, and into a hallway which leads to the main salon.

My first instinct is to turn away, go back out those front doors and dart across the Morstad's lawn towards the flowering hedge which acts as a fence between their property and mine, find an opening of sorts to crawl through – or, if all else fails, find a way to climb over top. My parents are probably sitting at the kitchen table right now, expecting me to walk in at any second. I could be home in less than a minute.

I tell myself to go, look down at my feet and tell them to move. Run, I say, but they don't listen. There's a curiosity that keeps me here. I've had dreams of this house, nights where I find myself standing in a foyer not too dissimilar to this one but at only half the grandeur. I walk through it, alone, getting to know it, examining the intricate designs of the fabric on the chairs, the every groove in the plaster. A singular wooden staircase, hanging overhead an elegant and modern light fixture which shines down on a console by the door upon which sit little frames holding childhood photos.

I've visited this place so many times, too many times, picked up each framed photo, sat in each chair, and drug my fingers across the plastered walls, and sadly, what I realize in this moment is that I've never actually been here. It was all just a fantasy I had constructed in my head, one that was shattered the moment those two doors closed together and sent their echo through me.

Once the echo disappears, I'm left to wander in the quiet of the home. Just it and me in a strangely intimate affair. I take a few steps forward, following the path laid out for me by the row of chandeliers. The soles of my shoes make little squeaking sounds as I walk, and these sounds, too, even with their mild timbres, create their own echoes which spark out from under me to follow the same paths as the other.

I can see the grand salon once inside the hallway between the two stairs, and I pause my steps before entering. Directly in front of me but several, several feet away is a grand fireplace, bordered in a dark marble slab that reaches from the floor to the high ceilings – higher ceilings than in my home, even, to the dismay of my mother, I'm sure. There's no fire burning in it, now, but I can imagine it. Winter nights, the five Morstads gathering around, cuddled into their favorite red and blue checkered blanket, coffee for the adults, hot chocolate for the kids, Axel telling stories of love and adventure from his old life in Norway. In contrast to the dark stone of the fireplace, the rest of the living room is decorated in shining silver, lemon yellows, and beige-y whites. The room houses several large, cream-colored sofas of button tufted suede and matching low-standing ottomans between them. The kind of living room, had it belonged to my parents, no one would be allowed to sit in.

I'm moved to recoil, taking a few steps back into the preceding hallway, succumbing to a cowardly comfort I can find here.

On either wall beside me, I see that there is a photograph which spans so vastly across it that it is as if there is no wall there at all, and there are lights on the floor and on the ceiling which illuminate these photographs with an amber nearly as perfect as that of the natural sun. I turn to one of them, the one on the left, but there is really no reason why I have chosen this one. It pulls me in, forcing me to make steps towards it, until I am so close to it that I see nothing but it, even in the farthest, most peripheral fields of my vision. If I dared to lose myself in its scene, I would find myself standing on a pier, the water that surrounded me a clear, soft blue painted overtop by the reflection of the mountains directly ahead and slightly interrupted by tiny, clean ripples throughout. The mountains, a familiar mix of charcoal brown and mossy green, drizzled with bits of white streaks from once abundant sheets of snow. I imagine the rustling sound of wind as it blows past my ears, the calls of seagulls, the bumping of plastic buoys as the water pushes them into the pier.

My concentration is broken by the sound of a door clicking open in the foyer. I step back from the photograph with a jump and lash my head around just in time to catch the image of Saxa closing the door back again.

The sight of her – I had almost forgotten that she was here, or rather that she was supposed to be here. I feel my breath catch in my throat, and there's heat rising from the back of my neck. I pray it doesn't spread to my cheeks.

"I'm sorry," I call, running back to the entryway. I hope she doesn't think I was lurking. I should have just stayed at the door, waited for her to come and greet me, as any decent guest would. Is it too cliché to say I didn't know what I was doing? Too absurd to blame it on the photograph? "I-I...I was just looki–"

She lifts up a hand and brings her eyes to meet mine. The look in those eyes tells me that my words are not welcome, and I stop my running, feet nearly tripping over themselves a mere few steps from the opening of the hallway. We both stand frozen for a moment, exchanging glances, wondering who will move first. My glances are plagued with remorse, but there's hurt in the glances she throws. Lips pressed together and curled into a frown, brow slightly pulled in creating tiny wrinkles on her forehead. Does she mean this hurt on me? I change my look to own of fear, hoping it will incite in her some compassion.

She lowers her hand, and I begin to move forward again. "It's just–" I start.

"Quiet," she says. Actually, she whispers this. It is the softest I've ever heard her speak, and thankfully, there's no malice that fuels it. Only a resigned calm, and it's as soothing in melody as the breath of the ocean. It's chilling, almost, and I can feel its power over me, regressing the heat on my neck into itself. "He's working."

The little wrinkles on her forehead smooth out, and she relaxes her lips with a slow exhale.

There's no further words spoken. She breaks our shared gaze and turns away to face the stairs to begin her ascent, bare feet tiptoeing from one stair to the next. I watch her from where I stand with unease, unknowing what I should do next. Is it too presumptive to follow?