T w e n t y S i d e d

It’s to the surprise of no one that the theoretical plan of replacing the French doors with a single door made from half of the original is a messy, impossible task. On paper it looked lovely. In practice, filling the wall is impossible, the door doesn’t line up right, nothing looks good and our family is frustrated. They begin calling the dismantled door the ‘fre do’, (half of french door) which is hilarious to them in their pushed to the edge states.

There is wordless grunting, helpless pointing, and a lot of shouting about the ‘fre do’. One family member holds up the door, another tries to line up the holes in the wall, and the third directs in what devolves quickly into a bad and inexplicable French accent.

Finally, to the surprise of no one, they give up. The door is broken, the wall is ruined, and everyone is tired. They plan to regroup the next day.

In their minds, this was how it was going to look by the end of the day.

It was not.

By the next morning, they have all unanimously and individually decided the door isn’t working. They need to make a new game plan. They decide to pull a counter from the kitchen downstairs to asses how bad the gap is.

It’s not as bad as they feared but it is infuriating. The double doors don’t quite fit but leaving a gap looks awkward. They could leave it, but it doesn’t feel right to, and at this point the war between them and the doorframe feels personal. What fills in gaps like that?

They eat their breakfast at the table, staring at the frame, thinking.

Finally, obvious in retrospect, it hits Kelly; the solution.

A window.

This is why we are here. These strange, odd looking half-solutions which will leave future generations pondering the question ; why is this here? Why is there a strange, clipping window into the laundry room? Was the builder drunk? Was the family just that dedicated to looking at their laundry? Did they have extra (very nice and expensive) french doors just…laying around? Small objects like tooth picks, grapes, ice cubes, bits of cheese…will fall between the counter and the window for years, creating timestamped layers of life visible from the other side, but not retrievable.

Someday a small child will sit and stare at those layers and consider why there is a window there, both completely reliant on, and entirely unaware of, the day our family has just had.

It will be gross and wonderful.

Bay Jubilee Oldest child of Shamus Young. They/Them