I inherited my grandmother’s house three years ago. Soon after, my father remarried and moved back in without asking. "I’m her son,” he told me. "This house should’ve been mine.”
His new wife went further, bagging my things like trash. "I live here now,” she said.
I smiled.
That night, she screamed.
A raw, shattered sound at 2:17 a.m. I was already awake, listening as something crashed upstairs. Then silence—thick and heavy.
At breakfast, her hands trembled. "Did you hear anything?”
"Old houses breathe,” I said. "Grandma used to say that.”
My father dismissed her. But she kept hearing things. Feeling watched.
The second night, he heard it, too—her scream, then sobbing. "There’s nothing there,” he insisted, voice shaking.
On the third night, she slept downstairs with every light on. At 2:17, the air turned cold. The grandfather clock ticked backward. She bolted up screaming.
By the fourth night, the house stopped pretending. Doors opened alone. Footsteps paced empty halls. A handprint fogged the bathroom mirror. My father finally screamed with her.
In the morning, Marla sat on the porch with a suitcase. "She speaks to you, doesn’t she?”
"Grandma always spoke to me.”
"She wants me gone.”
"She wants what’s hers protected.”
Marla left and didn’t look back.
My father crumpled on the steps. "You did this.”
"No,” I said. "You did.”
The front door opened. Cold air swept out.
And there she was—my grandmother, standing tall, her dress just above the floor.
My father fell to his knees. "I’m sorry,” he wept. "I thought I deserved it—”
The floorboards groaned. The air tightened.
"You were never owed what you abandoned,” I said.
Grandma looked at me and smiled.
And the house let go.
He came back three days later, alone. "I was wrong,” he whispered. "I don’t want the house. I just want a chance.”
I stepped aside.
Grandma watched.
The house decided.
Now, the clocks keep time. The air is warm. My father moves quietly, learning to mend what he broke.
And sometimes, at 2:17, I wake not to fear, but to the sound of humming—faint, gentle, like a hand on my shoulder.
The house is at peace.
And my smile is no longer armor. It’s home.
