That Cellar Door

There is a woodpile in my in-laws’ cellar, and some coal, but other rumored things also. And it has been there a long time since anyone tripped down these broken concrete steps. Maybe twenty or thirty years; we inherited this home a long time ago. We have sold it four times on contract, which has fallen through again. My husband is not here, He cannot take it. But I can, so I take a couple of steps, Until I get within a foot, when I stop dead as I can smell the mold through the three-inch door. The rumor is that there are treasures down there. I do not know. We were never allowed near this cellar door. Now I am sixty-six, so technically old enough to go down into this cobwebby den, But I can smell the mold through the door. So I back up and rest in an old lawn chair, left by one of the people who thought they were buying the house before they decided to desert it. I can still smell the mold, so I back up a bit further, the sun on my face, my feet leaning against a gentle lavender clover. I am terrified of mold, as I am an asthmatic, and mold could trigger some awfulness in me. So here I sit, staring as others wander in and out, poking among dusty things That are disintegrating as they are being brought out into the sun. Other relatives are coughing; trying to breathe as they haul green and brown stuff out, Most indistinguishable as real things at first or second glance. Most needing a power washing, that would completely decimate it. Maybe she had the right idea, one says, pointing at me, as I lie here, soaking Up the sun rays. I take off my shoes and push my toes into the clover. Then I turn my face up, letting the sun hit my nose. Are you kidding? A teenager yells. This treasure hunt is great! She runs back down the steps to haul out more loot that her prissy mother Will never let her take in the car, let alone in the house. I know because I am prissy girl’s mother. So here I sit, in a falling-apart green lawn chair, watching the show. Thinking how my mother-in-law is probably up in heaven laughing, as she too Smells the mold through that cellar door.