Carries | Playhouse

Carrie felt the words land in her chest like cold stones. “What about my playhouse?”

On rainy afternoons, the playhouse became a ship. The willow branches were sails, and the drumming rain on the tin roof was the sound of cannons from enemy frigates. Carrie would hold the chipped teacup like a spyglass and shout orders to her imaginary first mate, a brave mouse named Captain Biscuit.

Then came the letter.

“We found one,” her mother said. “We move in four weeks.”

The night before the moving truck came, she couldn’t sleep. She crept downstairs, pulled on her rain boots, and walked to the willow tree with a flashlight. carries playhouse

Because she knew the truth: a real playhouse isn’t made of wood and nails. It’s made of afternoons and imagination and a heart brave enough to believe. And no moving truck in the world could ever take that away.

And they did.

Carrie nodded. She did know. The new house would have a bigger kitchen and a bedroom for the baby brother her mother kept rubbing her belly over.