32 Days of Christmas: Day 6
Every morning, before consciousness fully returns to me, I hear a voice. A low, throaty murmur drifting through the dark. At first I dismissed it as the tail end of some stubborn dream, the kind that clings to you just as you open your eyes. But as the days passed, the Voice grew strangely familiar… and far more frequent.
It belongs to a man. That much I’m certain of.
A man that prefers the hours when shadows press against the walls and everyone is buried beneath blankets. I don’t think he wears shoes; he leaves no dusty footprints, no sound of footsteps padding through the corridor. My two little sisters know nothing of him because they fall asleep by eight, innocent and oblivious. I fall asleep a few hours later, and rise at dawn with them. By then the Voice has always dissolved into silence, leaving only the usual chorus of four females behind. It is as if he slips out as quietly as he slips in.
There is something achingly familiar about that Voice. I’ve heard it somewhere, many times, long before this. I just can’t place a finger on it. It is rough but tender, a rasp softened by warmth. Sometimes it chuckles between sentences—a bright, contented laughter. My mum laughs with it too; I can hear their muffled giggles drifting from the kitchen while they share the meat set aside for the Voice.
When we travel to ushago to visit grandma, the Voice disappears completely. It never follows us there. But when we return home, I can almost sense that it has been back, like the house itself is holding its breath. Now and then faint traces of its laughter ripple through the walls, even when he’s nowhere to be found. The owner of the Voice occasionally leaves socks scattered in odd places, which is a terribly incompetent way to remain invisible.
Sometimes the Voice leaves chocolates in the fridge for my sisters—always their favourite kinds too. For me it leaves books and dresses, the very ones I mention to Mum weeks before they appear. It seems to know I cannot be bribed with sugar and treats, so it tries to win me through learning. And ever since it became a fixture in our home, my mother has been lighter, brighter. Our school fees are paid on time. We’ve eaten meat more often than we ever did when Dad was alive.
Speaking of Dad… ever since the Voice began echoing through our rooms, Dad’s photographs have quietly vanished from the walls. The only image I still carry of him is the one preserved in my mind, now a fading memory sharing space with that other man’s voice.
I can’t say for sure whether the voice is real or just stitched together from longing and imagination. But one truth hums at the edge of my thoughts, undeniable as dawn:
There is a man in our house.
✍🏽Reagan.