I Know I Am Home When I Hear This Sound

What I listen for when I close my eyes

This morning, lying in bed, I heard the gentle melody of wind chimes. It was distant and soft, the air itself taking a second breath. I knew without opening my eyes that the relentless rain and sleet that had made the city wet and gloomy for the past two days had ended.

I opened my eyes, but was immediately startled by my surroundings, the peace with which I had awoken replaced by a sharp inhalation and quickening pulse. I was not in my king-sized four-poster bed beneath blankets carefully layered for softness and warmth, facing a fireplace mantle on which framed photos of my children’s dimpled smiles as babies made me know this was home.

I was on a full-sized futon next to my eleven year-old daughter, who had thrown the blankets off herself and onto me in a giant, messy heap during the night. I was facing a door, through which I could see a narrow sliver of sunlight, and a closet, which was open, revealing piles of shoes and clothes that were half-folded, stacked in teetering mountains.

But the chimes, I had heard them, faintly but clearly, the unmistakeable tinkling. When I had lived in my own home, my bedroom was at the back of the building, which faced the backs of other buildings. I could see the roof of the brownstone next to me…