1. Kaitlin Govey
FYS Group Picture Story
A new spring and a new family is moving into the third floor of my building, well a mother and a
daughter. She is a simple woman, with caring brown eyes and straight hair. When she came to look at
the rental space she held the hand of bright eyed little girl who would often try and break away to
wonder. As the mother tried to get settles and start rebuilding the toddlers railed bed, her daughter ran
around the room admiring the dove wallpaper singing “Birdy, fly, fly!” the mother would watch her for a
little while chuckle and get back to work.
After about a week or so the mother was finally settled on her third floor suite. Everything went
fine until an accident occurred. It was a beautiful summer day. I had come up from the floor below to
fix her leaky faucet. Her daughter was laying on her bedroom floor reading a picture book. The sweet
summer breeze from the open window filled the room. I left the room to work on the sink while the
mother returned to her daughter in the room a couple minutes passed and I was almost finished when I
heard the house phone ring from the living room. I could hear the mother walk through and answer the
phone. The next thing I hear after the footsteps passed me once more was the mother questionably
calling for her toddler, and then a scream. I rush into the room where I see half of her hanging out the
window screaming. I quickly ran over and grabbed the hysterical mother away from the window as she
faught against me. She quickly ran out of the room and I heard the front door slam shut. I then took the
time to see what happened. I peered out the window to see the distorted body of the downstairs door
and flung her body on the small body crying. She was gone.
That weekend she held a funeral and I attended. It was a small service. I felt obligated to go. I
am glad I did go because unfortunately I was the only attendee other than the mother and the preacher.
That’s when I realized that her baby girl was the only person the poor woman had in the world.
A month later the poor mourning mother was the talk of the building. The gossiping woman on
the fourth floor complained of loud sobbing late at night and it seemed as if she never left the building g
anymore. Out of concern I visited her and it was almost winter now and as I climbed the stairs I could
feel the heat from my floor that mixed with the frigid breeze of hers. I knocked on the door and it swung
open at my touch. My stomach sank. The room was so cold I could see my breath in front of my face. I
carefully walked through the floor looking through every room until I came to the deceased toddler’s
room. It was closed, unlike all the other rooms. I. knocked, when there came no answer I tried to open
it. When I found that it was locked I quickly rush to the other room and call 911.
Again the funeral was little to no attendance, the other six residence in the building and the preacher.
Afterward, while cleaning out her floor to make room for a new tenant I actively avoided the toddler’s
room that had turned into a place of mourning for her mother. That room, the only room still furnished,
haunted me. When I finally gathered enough courage to enter the room of death I was taken aback. I
hadn't remembered the condition that the room had been in the last time I was there. When
paramedics surrounded the bloody body of the distressed mother. Her self -inflicted wounds showed me
her pain and loneliness that she felt. But in all the rush I had not noticed the torn wall paper and the
destroyed hard wood floor. Fingernail scratched dug into the wood where the little girl sat reading her
book, moments before her passing. And that's when I looked at that open window, that blew in the cold
breeze so peacefully and chilling. And I thought to myself "That, open window is what started it all."
