5 The Moment We Knew
We had been looking for months. There had been feelings of finality and triumph quickly followed by months of despair. Years of discussion and a death in the family culminating in this visit, this viewing.
The house was on a small hill, crowned by an equally small glade of trees and collared by greenery, a far cry from our current, fairly urban neighborhood. The pictures had been deceptively poor quality and at odd angles and my wife had overlooked the property a half-dozen times already.
When we arrived, we were instantly home. The current homeowners had baked chocolate chip cookies and they were still steaming on a plate in the kitchen. The children were already moved in in their minds. I held back knowing that getting invested may still lead to more heartbreak, but secretly thrilled as I turned each corner imagining our things in the rooms instead of theirs.
My wife froze as she saw the back porch, uttering quietly words like, “sunset dinners” and “hot tub”. In truth there really was no hot tub, but ut had been a dream of ours for years to place on conveniently in our lives. I could see it too, all of us baking ourselves in the bubbly water while dinner was baking in the oven.
The kitchen was much larger than our current one and we could easily all gather and talk while cooking and even doing the dishes, all at the same time. Acts that would have driven us all mad in our galley kitchen.
Each of the kids could choose a room and there was extra space for socializing and crafting. They would soon be teenagers and my wife wanted them to want to be in the house.
Every time I passed by our realtor I raised an eyebrow and nodded my head. Getting more and more convinced, and also anxious at the same time. I couldn’t shake the memories of my wife’s depression when we lost the last house we had bid on. But the poorly lit photos and the weeks the house had been on the market unbid on gave me a measure of hope.
My youngest came charging up the basement stairs exclaiming that they had a bar downstairs. The kids hadn’t seen the pictures yet and so still saw everything with new, bright eyes.
My wife wondered about the dog, noting the lack of fencing and the realtor and I both assured her that installing a fence wouldn’t be too painful. We had seen a few houses in the neighborhood with tasteful fences. Everyone in the family visibly relaxed at that and we quickly moved on.
We all started dreaming about what would go where and what kind of new furniture we might need to fill the space and I couldn’t help but to smile. Even if we didn’t get this house this time, the place had cemented the fact that it was really happening. We really were moving. To a new residence and a new phase in our lives.