I had an idea of a house that grew as its inhabitants did, and so this short story came to life.

When I was a kid, I lived in a small cabin. It grew into a house, then a mansion, a cottage, and then back into a cabin. How I, or it, managed that is more unbelievable than anything you ever heard, but it is true.

It started when my friend bragged about the new house his family and he had moved into. He had his own room! It was no bigger than a closet, and his bed barely fit into it, but he had his own room. I told him that I, too, had my own room, though that was a lie. The cabin was nothing more than one small room, with a stove in a corner and the bed my mom and I shared in another. The next morning I woke, not to my mom rustling the bed sheets as she woke up for her first job, but to her knocking on what turned out to be my door.

The next thing happened when another kid told about how she was doing her homework in the kitchen while her dad cooked dinner last night. I told her I did the same, doing homework by the kitchen table while my mom cooked breakfast every morning before school. The next morning, as I opened my eyes, I could hear mom singing and something sizzling on the stove. The cabin had grown larger, the old wood stove still there, but a modest kitchen with a table and a few chairs had appeared.

As I grew older, I started to forget about these things. The cabin grew to have a decent bedroom for my mom, a living room next to the kitchen, an actual indoor bathroom with a shower, and my bedroom expanded so I could have a desk and a chair before it stopped. It had become a house. My mom got a boyfriend, who moved in with us, and he turned into a husband and stepdad. I went to college, got good grades, and got hired by my stepdad, who worked in construction. They still lived in the cabin which my stepdad had made some changes to, upgrading the kitchen and the bathroom. My mom’s health started declining in her 50s, and the doctors recommended that they move to a warmer place. My stepdad sold the construction company, and my mom signed over the house fully to me. I kept working at the construction company and moved back into my boyhood room, since it did not feel quite right to take over the master bedroom. I mused aloud in the living room, watching TV after a long day, that a second floor with a bathroom and a large bedroom would be perfect. I went to bed in my small bedroom and almost broke my neck the next day as I tried to open a nonexistent door and fell halfway down the new staircase. The house had granted my request. At first, I thought I was crazy, and I called my mom. She was uncomprehending and told me I had always had the upper floor, that my stepdad had fixed it up for me. My old room had disappeared, and so had the master bedroom, though all my things had been moved upstairs. My mom saw no issue with that either, claiming that they’ve always slept in what was now the dining room.

I tried again and again to have the house manifest another room, or a better kitchen, or a larger TV. None of which I needed, so it refused. Or at least, that’s how I thought of it. 

Until it got more serious with my then-girlfriend, and I asked her to move in with me one night. She started laughing, not even stopping when I told her off, and said that I should sell the house and buy something bigger with her. The kitchen was too old, the bathroom not modern enough, and the wallpaper… We broke up not long after that, but not before the house tried to accommodate her with a nicer kitchen, a bigger bathroom, and all-white walls. Nothing satisfied her, though. I felt like the house could feel how distraught the breakup made me, and wanted to cheer me up by adding a furnished basement with a fully stocked bar. It didn’t help, but only the booze disappeared. The basement, with its pool table, persisted.

My next girlfriend loved the house, and it seemed to love her back. It grew a nook where she could sit and read, and gave her a nice office so she could work from home. I knew it was time to propose when the house grew not one but two nurseries, and our twins were confirmed not long after.

One of the twins loved basketball, so the house gave her a hoop and as many balls as she could ever throw onto its roof. The other loved water, so it started with a kiddie pool and then an Olympic-sized pool when he was old enough. I had to talk it down, though, since a 50-meter-long pool wasn’t feasible at all, and though none of the other additions had even been noticed by other people, this one would certainly be!

The house tried, it really did. Whenever the teenage twins threw a tantrum about boredom, it created another room or filled an existing one with new gadgets. We had a full-sized arcade in the basement for a few years before the twins got bored, and then all kinds of consoles and video games. A gym, a cinema, even a bowling hall popped up! I had been easier to satisfy than the twins, I realized, and heaved a big sigh of relief as they moved out to college. The house had turned into a mansion with all the additions. I coaxed it into becoming a cozy place, a cottage for my wife and me, though it still tried to create more rooms whenever the kids were visiting. They grew up, found partners, and made families of their own. The house loved them all, but it was clear that it had grown tired just like myself. My wife died, my kids visited now and then, but it took me more and more effort to coax them home. One day, as I was cooking, I looked at the fancy kitchen with all its gadgets and told the cottage how thankful I was for it, but now it was time for us both to rest. That night, I went up to the loft using the stair lift the cottage had recently installed for me, and the next morning, I woke up in the bed that I had shared with my mom so many years ago. Both the cabin and I drifted back to sleep, but only one of us woke up again.