We’re not sure who he is. We’re not sure how he got here. But we do know one thing for certain: he’s on our side.
The first time we felt his presence, it gave us the courage to run to the neighbors and call the police. A home invasion. We could have died, but he gave us all the signal. The men who broke into our home were looking for drugs, drugs we’d never even heard of before. Their arrest was immediate. Their stories were fantastic. No one believed what they said they saw in our house. No one, that is, but us.
The second time we felt his presence, it gave us the direction we needed on the seemingly endless remodeling project. A new beginning. We could have fought and divorced, but he gave us the clarity. We were trying to fix something that wasn’t broken. The flaws in our house were not the result of any choices he had made. It’s just a house. Things get old. It doesn’t mean we have to. He wasn’t, so why should we?
The third time we felt his presences, it gave us the hope we were doing the right thing. A moving truck outside. We had packed everything up and it was time to move on. It was time to start over. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, and sometimes good people have to make their own luck. Leaving the house where my father died, mom took a picture as Sarah and I gave one last look at the house I grew up in, the one we got married in, and the one that never really seemed to change.
We don’t know for sure if it’s him. But we keep the picture in the scrapbook anyway. If it’s dad, it makes sense. If it’s not, he still feels like he belongs there. Either way, we feel like we have his blessing…and his protection.
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Jeff Hill is currently pitching a novel to agents while teaching high school English. He is a past participant of the Sarah Lawrence College Summer Seminar for Writers and the Writer’s Hotel in New York. Jeff is also the Chief Creative Officer of ComicBooked.com. He calls Nebraska and New York home and has dozens of publications to his name.
Image by Axel Rouvin
Very nice. Touching without being sentimental.
I agree. A nice quick piece with an impact at the end.