From outside looking in I see a house; it’s typical for this area. The shutters are painted light blue and the last blooms of potted flowers planted in the spring are just starting to droop and fade. It is an unassuming house. The lawn might be considered a little too long by the neighbors and it is starting to yellow, but in my mind it’s the perfect size and shape for this house. I imagine that in a few weeks, Jack-o-Lanterns with wide grins and triangular eyes will adorn the front step. Stepping inside the front door, this house feels different somehow. With its’ plain, cream-colored walls and sparse yet sturdy furniture, this house feels like a military home.
The main focal point in the living room is a vintage upright piano that stands lonely against one wall. It is surrounded on all sides by photos, some are old sepia-toned and cracked around the edges, living in overly ornate silver frames. Glossy with plain wooden frames, most of the pictures are full of laughter and smiles. Straight above and perfectly centered with the piano there is a framed folded American flag. It dominates the room with its bright white and blue threads. Its classic beauty seems to hold power over everyone in the house. Two black and white photos in matching cherry-wood frames stand out to me. In one there is a group of about thirty men, all standing at parade rest, their hands behind their backs and their faces stern. The other photo is a head shot of a man with light eyes that seem kind. He is grimacing into the camera as though to tell his family not to believe such a horrible picture.
It is not noticed immediately, but children do live in this home. A swing set with a green slide towers over the small backyard, used sippy cups line the kitchen counter, and next to the front door lives a miniature pair of pink sneakers that are stained with grass and mud. Yet this house seems too quiet for there to be children living in it. A walk down the hallway confirms that a young girl does indeed live here, she sit at a desk that seems too large for her, her pigtails that are tied with red ribbon bob up and down with every movement she makes…She’s writing her weekly letter, complete with crayon drawings of her favorite teddy bear, to her daddy. Unlike her baby brother who’s sleeping in the crib across the room, she remembers her dad and prays every night at bedtime that he comes home soon.
This house claims no disorder, no dust, and no clutter. There are no toys strewn about, no cat hair on the sofa and no fingerprints on the polished coffee table. The scent of this house is Pledge furniture polish, a recently burned lilac candle, Ajax cleaning powder and the underlying scent that is in essence, female—a scent that somehow means that a man hasn’t entered this house for quite some time. This type of cleanliness and organization can only come from a lonely woman. It comes from a woman who glows with strength and grace during the day, who juggles her work and children with compassion and love—the type of woman that other women come to either admire or hate. This is the woman of the house and the smudges under her eyes say that after three months of her husband being gone, she still can’t get use to sleeping alone.
When I walk out of the house I feel conflicted. I can stand on the yellowing front yard and I can know that inside that house, behind the lacy curtains at the window, lives a family controlled every day by the Army. But until I walk back in, all I can see is an ordinary house, unassuming, with pretty blue shutters and flowers in pots that are starting to fade.
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