EMILY PRATT SLATIN

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She/Her/Hers Lesbian

Retired Career Fire and EMS Lieutenant-Specialist, Writer, and Master Photographer, living in Vermont.

Ceiling Fan

October 3, 2026—Stamford, New York (Mom’s House)

This evening Nora and I returned to the Bel.

I went out in my favorite denim jacket that smelled like the culmination of this summer’s campfires.

The new owners of the Bel still seem to be getting the place set up. There are little things here and there that make the place feel unfinished, as though everything has not quite found where it belongs yet.

My name is still written on the wall of the Bel from many years ago.

In college, I once spent the night with a friend and some of his buddies. I did not realize until we got there that we were spending the night in an abandoned house. It was actually a really nice place that someone had lost to foreclosure, and apparently they had left everything behind. The house was still furnished, with beds, couches, tables, and pretty much everything else you would expect to find in a house. Everything was there with the exception of utilities.

I eventually found somewhere comfortable to sleep and went to bed. The following morning, I woke up and rather quickly discovered that while I had been sleeping, someone had stolen the ceiling fan.

The Belvedere will probably become my go-to place from now on. John’s has gotten a little too sleazy for me, and I have also been told that I bring my “woke bullshit” with me every single time I go there.

I like how the Belvedere has two different restrooms but no official signage designating each to a specific gender. So the bathrooms at the Bel seem to be just as gender neutral as many of its patrons.

Today was another beautiful autumn day in the Catskills. Instead of the leaves changing colors, this year they skipped ahead and fell prematurely.

I walked up Academy Street to the Bel a little after six in the evening. I was the first customer of the day. I ordered my usual Coke Classic with maraschino cherries, talked with the bartender briefly, and went out back to start a campfire.

As I waited for everyone to arrive, I sat by the fire and thought about everything that has happened in the past year. I decided that forever and a day needed to be a standard unit of measurement for me, so I determined it to be exactly 366 days.

I have been at Mom’s house since Maddie’s birthday on September 17, which means I have been here for sixteen days. I haven’t spent this much time here consecutively since 1994.

Dad had the bright idea of sending me to summer camp and boarding school at the same time, thereby limiting the amount of time I actually spent at home. Apparently, sixteen consecutive days at Mom’s house was a record I had been holding onto for thirty-two years. Whenever I return to Mom’s house, I especially crave the time I get to spend in my childhood bedroom. It was always my room, but somehow I never got enough time in it when I was young.

Thirty-two years later, I still crave time spent here.

Nora arrived and joined me by the fire. Then, all of a sudden, everyone Nora and I knew started shuffling in. We spent the rest of the evening gathered around the tables at the Bel, carving pumpkins while I told some of my crazy stories.

Toward the end of the evening, Mary, the owner of the Bel, made a brief appearance. We all sat around the fire together. Everyone was there. I told Mary that it would mean the world to me if she would consider opening the Bel back up, and that if she ever decided to rent the rooms upstairs again, I would absolutely spend the night there from time to time, despite owning Mom’s house at the opposite end of the block.

Mary asked what was happening with Mom’s carriage house. I explained that we still had to put in a new floor upstairs, reinstall the stairs, add commercial wiring, heating and cooling, French doors, and oversized windows. I told her the plan was to build a mock fire department downstairs with a large-scale model train loft upstairs.

Mary went home, and the Bel closed an hour early this evening. I walked Nora down to Mom’s house. She hugged me in the driveway, told me she was heading across the street to John’s Tavern, and promised to text me later when she made it home safely.

Amelia is settled into her new home in Buffalo. I’m settled into the life I always wanted but never thought possible.

My father did everything he could to ensure that I never saw a single penny of my inheritance. Mom outlived him by well over a decade. In the end, everything my father tried so desperately to keep out of my hands ended up going directly to me and Amelia.

I no longer cry every time I think about her. This is both a mercy and another form of loss. Love does not require unlimited access to another human being.