We were creators of dreams and custodians of promise in the James' house. In the springtime, we set up tents around their fire pit in the late morning, and we traveled in a caravan of sedans and coupes to the supermarket for marshmallows, hotdogs, and liters of soda. We winced at the cashier, thinking about Michael's off-key voice paired with Steve's acoustic guitar, and we paid with our parents' credit cards.

We drove back from the store to the James' house in the summer, and Peter opened the garage to give us a place to put our coolers. We placed vodka bottles on top of the ice tray in the rusty freezer. In the afternoon, we called everyone we knew to play football in the backyard, and we ran until our lungs felt like they would explode with crisp air. We scraped our knees and bruised our forearms on the grass; we argued about unfair teams and whether cleats should be legal. We rinsed ourselves off in the pool, and we lay on beach chairs with pruned fingers, hugging our damp towels around our bodies and staring at the sky.

We dragged ourselves into the James' house when it was too cold outside to swim anymore—when the leaves fell in orange carpets onto their front yard. At night, we bounced quarters off the kitchen table into shot glasses; we dealt cards and pointed fingers when our friends had to finish their beers. We had first loves and lost them, and we had them and lost them again. We sat in a circle on the porch, exhaling clouds of breath and smoke while we tried to put our world-changing ideas into words. We argued over which couple should claim the foldout couch in the basement, and the winners groped, loved, and shared pillows and blankets with the person sleeping next to them. The rest of us—alone but not lonely—passed out on soft sections of floor around the house.

We woke up in the early morning, when the sun stirred the people scattered around us, and we looked down out of the James' windows onto the snow on the lawn. We cleaned the kitchen before we ate waffles from the toaster and drank orange juice from a gallon jug. Some of us left full and warm, headed for school and cities and work. The rest of us waited until our clothes were done in the dryer, and then we bundled up and pulled our sleds into the woods behind the James' house. We raced each other down small hills, between trees, and we threw snowballs that melted into each other's collars. We trudged through the snow back toward the James' house sometime around noon, when our noses and ears stung red in the cold.

We saw the sign there; we stood in the backyard and watched the men place cardboard boxes with permanent marker labels into a yellow truck. We saw Mrs. James unplug the electric windowsill candles one by one, and we realized we were older and it couldn't always be the same. It hurt us still; we blamed our tears on the wind. Peter climbed into the back seat of his father's red pickup truck, and we didn't know what to do besides wave goodbye.

Soon there was a wooden swing set in the James' backyard, and we watched a young couple take turns pushing their daughter on her tire swing. We drove by the house one afternoon when there were balloons hanging from their mailbox and minivans parked in the driveway. One cold night, we watched the young couple arrange carved pumpkins—laughing, spiky-toothed, wide-eyed faces—on their front porch.

On our way to work early one morning, we saw a Christmas tree through their front window; the white lights and decorations made us think of our friends and the James family hundreds of miles away. We knew that eventually the young couple and their daughter would make that house their own, but we knew it would take years before the James' house wasn't our home anymore.

Note: This is an older piece that was published in an online journal associated with Rowan University. However, the journal's website has since been taken down. I thought it'd be nice to bring the story home. -gj

Image Credit: "White Christmas" by Josh McGinn is licensed by CC BY-ND 2.0