The Room Nobody Opened

Picture a woman named Colleen, 71, who has kept one door in her house closed for three years.

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Picture a woman named Colleen, 71, who has kept one door in her house closed for three years. Behind it is the study where her husband Bertram worked on his crosswords and his letters. He died on a Thursday in autumn. On the Friday she shut the door. It has stayed shut through three autumns.

Now Colleen is moving to a small city in Portugal, where her daughter Kira lives. The house has a buyer. The closing date is nine weeks away, which is 63 days. The movers have asked for a list of what goes, what is sold and what is given away. Every room is on the list except one.

Kira arrived on a Saturday with flat boxes and a roll of tape. She stood in the hall with Colleen and looked at the door.

"Mom, we could start with the desk drawers," Kira said. "Only the drawers."

Colleen put her hand on the doorknob and took it away again. "I will tell you what it is," she said. "It smells like him. The pipe tobacco he gave up years ago is still in the curtains. His reading glasses are on the blotter, and the crossword is on the chair arm with three squares left. As long as the door is shut, he is on his way back from the kitchen with a cup of tea. If I open it, it may only be a room."

Kira did not say anything. She sat down on the hall floor with her back against the wall, as she used to when she was ten and waiting for a bath. After a minute Colleen sat down beside her. They stayed there until the light in the hall window turned orange.

"I am afraid," Colleen said, "that I will carry the room in my head and forget what it was like to stand in it."

"Could I take pictures first?" Kira asked. "Every wall. Before anything moves."

Colleen cried then. She nodded. She opened the door herself, and Kira photographed the room from the doorway while Colleen stood with her eyes mostly closed. When it was done, Colleen walked in alone and took the reading glasses off the blotter. Nothing else. She put them in her cardigan pocket.

The next morning she kept the door shut again, and Kira let her. On Wednesday Colleen opened it, made a mug of tea and carried it in. She sat in his chair and looked at the three empty squares. She did not know the words, and she left them. That was the week.