The Fall of the House of Galan

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Holidays are around the corner. This should be a time to feel joy, or at least something close to it.
Instead, I keep looking out the window to see if the man will finally come take this house off my hands. The Key-Bearer.
He stands where the porch light fails, still and unreadable, holding that single key I’ve been waiting for.

But he never comes.
Days turn to months, months to years.
Dust gathers in the corners.
Cobwebs stretch into thin, delicate castles.
The cracks in the walls lengthen like fault lines, as if the house is stressed more than I am, or like me.

And still, the Key-Bearer does not move.

My body is tired in ways rest doesn’t fix. I try to think good thoughts, repeat the phrases everyone says should help. But instead my hands shake, my skin sweats cold, and my chest locks up as though the air itself has turned against me.
I glance outside again.
The Key-Bearer is there, watching, patient, but never stepping forward.

Once more, he doesn’t come.

On good days my body just mopes, dragging itself around like a shadow of me. On the bad days I break, sobbing, stuck, unable to uncurl from the hurt. Do you know that feeling?
They told me it’s clinical depression.
A small phrase, heavy in weight.

And then there are my kids. Two of them.
They live with their hearts outside their chests, raw and honest and real. They smile the way only children can, fully, without effort, without doubt.
I pretend to match them.
I laugh for them.
I brighten myself like the glow of the Christmas tree in our living room.
But they can feel the difference between a sun and a bulb.

Sometimes I catch them looking at me the same way I look at the Key-Bearer,
hoping I’ll take a step forward.