Our ‘Homeplace,’ Like a Phantom Limb

Family stories are entangled with the houses

The Homeplace. Screenshot from Google street view.

These houses are gone but I feel them. The white dust from the asbestos siding on my fingertips. Rotton apricots, slippery underfoot. The smell of plaster and my Great Aunt Til.

Aunt Til’s father built three houses on this corner around the turn of the 20th century. Each contained multiple apartments…