The House on the Hill
A flagstone walk way winded towards the house on the hill. Halfway through, on the only curve, sat a pregnant bush, which, if untrimmed would grow over the path creating a subtle but unmistakable disorder in the approach. It’s roundness lending infinite points of symmetry, and yet a softening of suburban geometry. Its robust presence standing firm and soft. The house on the hill looked small from the street, as if its girth was tucked under its pants below. A deception from the earth. The back more imposing reaching high from its similarly flagstone patio to its two stories above and one below. The front, a polite and understated façade masking the layers. Two lengthy but shallow brick steps lead to a modest slab that ushered you to the door, with a white wooden architrave, a simple casing framing a traditional entrance. An empty antique ten gallon country milk can was plotted solo apart from the door. An unusable remnant from the past, like a stamp it stood.
Eight chimes sounded, in ascending and descending order, e, c d, g… g, d, e, c. Instrumental instruction hiding in plain sight with each ring. Through the door to the right the living room, where you did not live. A bright yellow trimmed broadloom axminster, not quite wall to wall, lined with a chestnut brown and filled in with white and diamond curvilinear patterns announced the space. Yellow couches stood starkly on top, an air of frivolity buttressing the mood. The mother loved yellow. Yellow appeared often throughout the house. Like the famous post impressionist’s use of the color, glowing happiness and creativity in any landscape. Boldly asserting its brightness like a badge. The carpet stood starkly across the threshold from a deeper brown shag of the main level and boasted hardwood on top of which it sat, peeking from its borders. To the right in the picture window sat the baby grand, the centerpiece of austerity. On the opposite wall, presided a 19th Century Danish blue grandfather clock that never kept time.
A parlor of refinement to be viewed unless invited. There were three options in the entrance, bearing to the right into the living quarter, climbing 5 steps to a mid level etage with two bedrooms or to the immediate right onto the broadloom. Every entrance effectively trapped in the middle.
From the window in her upstairs bedroom in the house on the hill, the Manhattan skyline. Through leafless trees in winter stood the Towers, a far off but not so distant Oz. The room inside, a snow globe, the city the hand of the world just underneath and all around. The upstairs bedroom was separated from another by 5 flight of stairs, sharing a bathroom that she needn’t share. An empty bedroom most days unless the older siblings were to visit. Two attic spaces inhabited the flights of these two neighboring rooms. One, grand with tall ceilings, large enough to be another great room but unfinished and remote. The other, a smaller space caverned in the eves with steps leading to another unlit area for storage. From a child’s imagination, these spaces were places of mystery, ominous and barren, save some boxes and unused clothing. Symbols of the unknown lurking right outside her door. These were part of the grottos of the house on the hill, like the bulkhead entrance to the basement where she could hide. Like the small storage spot near the laundry room that had no apparent use save a childhood fort. Like the boiler room closet, a room unto itself, cordoned off from living space of the basement, dark and unused by its occupants.
She would watch from her seat at the table as the father retreated to the basement nightly in the house on the hill. Plates clacking, cupboards shutting, as he made his descent, cigar in hand. A familiar path from the kitchen, through the family room to the door that lead down he would go. The sounds of sporting games rising through the floorboards, a subterranean cave emanating artificial noise at all times. Like radio signals from a distant planet they always played, the rooms revolving with the days to the distant but ever present hum.
The mother had her office off the kitchen. A hands off space filled with recipes, books, and the household’s affairs. A push button beige telephone that sat on the corner, her portal to her own life that was all outside of the house on the hill. Laughter echoing, unknowable conversations, eyes diverted as the hand waved her away.
The outside patio was lined with bushes and perennials and housed a firewood storage shed packed with wood that was never used. When the shouting started, the girl would carry the dog there, chase him to launch off the adjoining steps, taking delight in his flight. Following him into the tree lined yard, on the silken grass. Twisting thumbs through the loose curls in his ears, tucking his head under her armpits. The feel of the fur on his head against her lips, a shape and texture she could return to, something always familiar as if carried forward from some eternal life.
When the piano played, the house on the hill rose from its steely slumber. The mother sitting on the wooden padded keyboard bench within which the music was stored. The dinner guests would gather round as they called out tunes. Delicate, long index fingers stretched down from her stout and chubby frame, striking the keys often more from memory than the pages she turned. Laughter between chords, and purposeful elaboration of lyrics as they would join in her song.
The house on the hill sat on Fernhill Road. It is said that a fern has as much to do with seeing as not seeing. Living fossils bearing no fruit nor flower and yielding no seeds. It was thought that since no one could ever find the elusive fern seed, it must be invisible. This led to folklore that anyone carrying a fern seed would likewise be rendered invisible.
The dog went blind in the house on the hill, lost control and stained the white and yellows, creating the odor of time and decay. In dreams, the whiteness cannot be revived, cannot be erased, an elusiveness of purity. You can never return to the house on the hill, and yet, you can never leave.
