The House Atop the Hill

A story about a man who ponders life in the highlands, observing his family and reflecting on events past

The House Atop the Hill

 

     My family and I lived in a small house on the top of the hill in the misty highlands. We bought a house a good 10 minute drive from town but somehow still in the middle of everything. Behind us stood a cliff, facing proud to the sun, and down the hill ran a stream to a wide-open lake. The sun just hit its crest when I fired up my old charcoal grill and reeds started playing in my head. My son Niklaus had all of his friends over for his birthday, turning 12 today. Sometimes you look around and wonder how everything around you has stayed the same but the one thing you wish you could keep forever grows in front of you, and grows beyond you. He ran with his little friends down the side of the hill and I wonder if in many years from now if his friends and he will ever run down that hill again. And I wonder if maybe one day I’ll be able to sit on my porch in the old rocking chair and watch them as I have so many times before.

     Why it was just yesterday when he came home from his first day of school with three little friends and went to go play Vikings out back. His mother was so happy he made friends; I let her go watch them and I started dinner and watched from my window. No one can grill a sausage like I can anyway. How young and carefree and happy they were to just play outside. And he ended up making friends his first day. Thank the lord he doesn’t take after his father in that department.

     So I throw burgers on the grill, flop on a few sausages and watch the boys chase the wind. My daughter Mayella comes out leading her small cousins. My wife’s sister came up for Nik’s birthday and brought her gaggle along with her. Her boyfriend… God save me, her boyfriend took her by the hand and brought her out to the field along with my nephews and nieces. He held his fiddle to his shoulder, took up his bow and started playing a dancing tune. My daughter showed them how to step to a lively dance and started pulling people from their seats to get a dance going, grabbing adults, children, even her brother Joel to his dismay. If there was one thing that boyfriend of hers was good for, it was his instrument. Hell if I weren’t too old to dance without making a fool of myself I’d jump in. But I admit I’m just being a finicky, protective father. He was a good kid, and Mayella was 17. Deep down I was happy for them. Deep, deep down.

     I asked my father-in-law to watch after the meat while I take a stroll down to the lake. I whistled along to the jig he was playing and took in the always-fresh highland air. The sun shined so gently on our little house atop the hill for my son’s birthday. Half the town showed up it seemed, for my 12 year olds birthday. I only had one grill I laughed to myself as I trudged closer to the lake. This was one of my favorite walks. When I woke up early, and my beautiful wife still lay sleeping next to me I would quietly and slowly get out of the bed and dress up for a walk. The morning air was always brisk so I dress a little warm, walked out into the open air and I find myself where I am now.

     I reach the lake and I turn left and walk along the rocks. The deep water holds the faded reflection of times long, long ago. I remember when I first took Mayella down here as a baby. I jumped down and held her in my hands with her little floaties and she just smacked at the water. Or when I took Joel down here to fish with me and he lost his rod when he was taking a bite of his sandwich. Or even when I let Mayella and her boyfriend go on their first “romantic” date down here, with me supervising a ways back of course. Even that was two years ago. The song Tha Mo Ghaol Air Aird A' Chuain comes to mind, even though I have no lost love at sea. But looking into the lake and reminiscing of all of these fading memories, I feel like my beautiful children are, too, being lost to me. I remember when I first held Niklaus, and now he’s 12. Perhaps a parent’s greatest curse is time.

     I understand that maybe I’m selfish. I am proud of my kids in everything they do. And I, like how I had to learn to let Mayella grow and start dating, must learn to let them grow old. The other day Joel brought home an A+ on a pre-calc exam and he’s only 15. He’s much smarter than I was at his age. Mayella spends most of her time volunteering to help teach small children at the school when she’s done classes, and still maintains magnificent grades. And Nik the starting striker for the school team. I don’t care if he is only in elementary school, my boy is a great footballer, and there’d be hell to anyone who said otherwise. Sure it may pain me to watch them out grow their old man, but I have never felt happiness as the pride in my children’s achievements have given me.

     My wife had just come out of the house with an enormous roast. She never fancied herself a cook and if you ask her she can’t even boil water, but nothing more juicy and tasteful has ever touched my tongue than one of her famous roasts. Everything at this party but the grilled food was her cooking. Maybe that’s why everyone showed up, I chuckle to myself. She placed it down on the table next to the meatballs and potato salads and threw off her oven mittens, picked up her dress and joined the circle where everyone was dancing.

     She brightened up my day, this woman. I met her when I was in high school and to this day my love burns stronger and stronger each passing minute. She followed me even here to the highlands and we live happy, modest lives. We aren’t poor by any means, but we don’t need money. The small house atop the hill holds everything we need. Even from here I can make out her blue eyes. All you need to do is look into this woman’s eyes and you have instantly fallen for her. And it doesn’t hurt that she can hold her own in the pub with me.

     When I look up at the misty mountains I am reminded of why I moved here. I turn to the party and see my daughter, boyfriend in one hand, Joel in the other, and a ring of children, skipping along to an older gentleman who took the boys fiddle and started playing a tune. Nik hid behind a large rock with a small stick in his hand like a sword with his friends. Fighting dragons I bet, if he’s anything at all like me. The sun shown down at all of this and I just looked upon it and smiled. The bible says that God looks down on his creations, his world, and says this is good. Well maybe this is how he felt. I look at my children, my world, and I smile and whisper to myself, “this is good.” And so I take a stone from the shore and skip it along the lake of reflections and turn back up to my wonderful world at the house atop the hill.