The House

She watched her daughter in the water, playing some elaborate game with her friends, the Banks children, who came visiting every year. Ma Banks was talking to her at this moment, but she could only hear snatches of her conversation, because she was thinking about Emma again, Emma and the house.

The house was old. There never did seem to be an end to repairs. The floorboards on the stairs had had a ghoulish creak as long as she could remember; the oven was still the same old thing her parents had installed, requiring hours of cleaning twice a year, which always ended up with the cleaner - Julie on the spring, Bobby on the fall - covered in soot up to their elbows, smudges across the face. 'We'll get a new one next year,' they always said, and leafed through magazines looking at the latest, the flashiest models.

The lake was pure, full of fish. Her father had built a pier, and the children, even now, were diving off it into the familiar waters, deep enough so no small head would bang on rocks, close enough to the part were feet could touch the bottom.

Emma wanted to go to university in New York. She was a bright child. Her mother knew she'd make it. And she would find a flat there. Her parents would stay here, in the old, creaking house.

'I'll get a new one, close to a city,' Emma had once said. 'I'll be a famous photographer and an attorney and I'll invite you over all the time. You should move there too! You can have a new oven and new stairs and new everything.'

Emma just didn't understand.

Julie tried to. She really did. Emma had always wanted to go to the city.

'The best coffee brand if you ask me,' finished Ma Banks. Her companion blinked at her, as if waking from a dream.

'Oh my dear!' Ma's round face wrinkled with sudden concern. 'My dear! Are you crying?'

Julie loved the house.