The Yellow House

On the corner of Mulberry and Clark sat a house. It was a yellow house, with blue shutters and a blue door. There was a cement path that led you to the four steps that brought you up to the front porch. At first there was a for sale sign on the front lawn, but eventually that for sale sign turned into a sold sign and a packed station wagon showed up in the driveway to stay. And with that packed station wagon came a couple, a happy couple that called that yellow house on the corner of Mulberry and Clark, home.

One day the happy couple brought home a puppy, and that summer the husband put up a white picket fence in the front yard to keep their puppy from chasing the cars that went by. And a few years went by and one snowy winter day the happy couple brought a tiny baby boy up the four front steps through the blue door and into the yellow house, where they were greeted by their puppy, who was no longer a little puppy.

In the summer the puppy watched the baby in the front yard, while the wife dug in the garden, and the husband read the newspaper on the front porch. And the next summer when the boy could run he chased the puppy around the front yard and when he fell down, the puppy licked his face, and the boy would get up, and they would continue. And the wife would sit on the front porch and balance a book on her large belly, while the husband fixed the station wagon in the driveway.

The next fall when the boy was joined by a sister they would play in the leaves of the maple tree, that were raked up by their father. And their dog would play with them, while their mother baked pies from inside the yellow house they called home.

Several years went by and in those years in the spring the mother would plant new flowers with the help of the boy and the sister. And the father would mow the lawn, while the dog napped on the front porch at the top of the four steps. In the summer the boy and the sister would run through the sprinkler with the dog, while the mother sipped lemonade on the front porch, and the father washed the station wagon. In the fall the boy and the sister would build leaf piles and jump in them with the dog, while the mother baked, and the father swept off the front porch and the four steps. In the winter the boy and the sister built snowmen with carrot noses, and the dog stayed inside looking out the front window to keep an eye on them. While the mother and the father shoveled the driveway, and the cement path that led to the four steps.

When the boy and the sister started school they waited on the corner of Mulberry and Clark for the school bus. The dog stayed inside the white picket fence and watched them. The mother waved good-bye to them from the front porch, and the father got in the station wagon to go to work.

Eventually the station wagon stopped driving the father to work and he bought a new car. Eventually the boy and the sister stopped playing in the sprinkler, and the dog stopped chasing them around the yard. In the fall they no longer played in leaf piles. And in the winter they no longer made snowmen with carrot noses. The boy had his friends and the sister had her friends, and neither's friends ran through sprinklers or played in leaf piles or made snowmen with carrot noses. Eventually the dog got so old that he died, and the father tore down the white picket fence because the paint was too chipped and he claimed he only put it up because of the dog.

One night the sister was brought home by a boy that kissed her on the front porch, right at the top of the four steps, and she thought she was in love. And her brother came home past curfew smelling of alcohol and cigarettes. And the mother and father got in a fight and the father slept on the living room couch for a week.

Eventually the boy broke the sister's heart because he never loved her, and she cried on the front porch in the middle of the night, only to be brought inside by her brother sometime after 2 a.m. Eventually the brother spent his nights smoking in the driveway. Eventually the mother kicked the father out and he left with his new car, so they had to buy another one. Then it was just three inside the yellow house with the blue shutters and the blue door. The yellow house with the cement path to the four steps to the front porch. The yellow house on the corner of Mulberry and Clark that they called home.

A summer later the brother left for college, having put out his last cigarette on the porch, and it was just the sister and the mother. The sister kissed another boy on the front porch. This boy stuck around. He came to dinner all the time and the sister and the mother both loved him. And when the brother came home in the summer he was greeted by his sister and his mother with hugs and kisses.

That summer the sister left for college, and she said goodbye to the boy who kissed her on the front porch and stuck around. Then it was just the mother left in the yellow house. Every summer her children came home from college and eventually they got their own houses and had their own families, but they still came to visit their mother in the yellow house. At Christmas the brother and the sister would come with their families. The grandchildren would run around the front yard and make snowmen with carrot noses and the yellow house would be filled with the smell of gingerbread cookies and Christmas trees. The yellow house on the corner of Mulberry and Clark was all their home on Christmas.

Eventually, many, many, many years later the mother got very old and went to live in a nursing home, and the brother and the sister put the yellow house with the blue shutters and blue door up for sale. And the yellow house became just that, a house.