The House on the Hill

It was modest yet distinguished

Gleaming white clapboards three stories high,

Green shutters and a turn-off driveway

To the huge garage that you knew

Without being told used to be

A real carriage house.

They were regular people

Mowed their own lawn

Didn’t send their daughter away to school.

She went to the town school

With us regular guys, and if

Her clothes were a little better

It was so subtle even the girls

Couldn’t find a way to be put off.

What she saw in me I can’t imagine

But I had her first, in the back

Of her Dad’s station wagon

A dozen times,

Another dozen times.

And then she went with Preston

Told him she was a virgin.

We giggled together over that.

She was pregnant by one of us

I was sure at the time.

Now I’m a little less sure

But whatever, he did the right thing

And married her, white dress and all.

They settled down,

I went away,

And it was twenty years

Before I saw her again.

She had lost three babies in a row

And her pretty body

Was sixty pounds heavier.

Preston was out of work.

I didn’t know what to say.

This is life I guess

In a small town, probably

It’s life anywhere.