A Memoir By Venessa Anderson

There is a certain peace that descends on the house once my grown children leave. 

“Visits.” That’s what my sons do now with the home they grew up in. They arrive with their girlfriends and stay for a week or two, riling up the dogs, relaxing with their feet on the furniture, and frequently raiding both the beer in the garage fridge and the snacks in the pantry. 

Food disappears at astonishing rates. A dozen eggs gone after one breakfast. Pounds of cold cuts and cheese last two lunches. I must buy Costco-sized bags of chips and fruit to make it through the week. 

“I’m starving, you have nothing to eat!” one son says, rifling through the fruit bowl. “What even is this,” he asks, squeezing the blush-red fruit with its tough skin I had thought might taste good in a salad. “You and dad buy the weirdest stuff now that we’re out of the house.” My son sniffs the pomegranate and tosses it back into the bowl.

The energy in the house buzzes when the children-turned-adults return and everything is a bit brighter, a bit livelier. The family cookout attracts the cousin who managed to pull himself away from his summer internship for an afternoon of gossip and games. Grandparents who normally drone on about politics from their lounge chairs suddenly decide to join the kids in the pool and rejoice in how refreshing it is to swim. Makeshift garbage bags explode with paper plates and recyclables and the dogs pace the yard sniffing for errant hot dogs and half-eaten burgers.  

Time, however, does not linger, in the summer’s chaotic hum. Someone is eventually named the corn hole champion. The solar cover is pulled over the pool. Mosquitoes drive people into the house where the siren song of childhood beds loll revelers to sleep. 

It is not long before my sons pack up their suitcases and throw the rest of the snacks in their cars, inevitably leaving something important behind as they wave goodbye. 

And then, there is a quietness. 

The dogs sleep a little later.

I lounge in my pjs without a bra on.

My coffee is still warm in my cup.

I find the pomegranate in the bottom of the near-empty fruit bowl and begin to peel it at last.

Peace? Is that what this silence is? 

I hold an aril in my red-stained fingers. Squeezing it gently, I feel the tension of the skin protecting the seed and juice inside. The temptation is there to pop it — to experience the sweet mess that occurs when I press too hard. Instead, I place it gently in the bowl with the rest of the seeds I have scooped from the hard membranes of the fruit, and place it to the side for later. 

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Venessa Anderson is a high school educator who enjoys writing both fiction and non-fiction. Her latest project on the Icelandic “Situation” is a historical fiction novel that chronicles the American occupation of Iceland during WWII and its effect on women. Venessa earned her MFA from Fairfield University and is a Connecticut Writing Project alumna. Her work will appear in the 2026 Connecticut Literary Anthology. When she is not writing or grading papers, you can find her in her garden, driving children to soccer practice, or dancing Zumba. She and her husband live in Trumbull, CT. She is at http://www.venessaanderson.com.