She waited another minute before getting up. They had kept the light in the foyer on and Kara passed under it, squinting. Met by Jack’s snoring on the second floor, she bypassed his bedroom and went to Lilah’s.
She had just stepped into her room when Lilah cried, “Mommy!”
“I’m here,” Kara whispered. “Bad dream?”
She whimpered, “Uh-huh.”
“I’ll lay down with you.”
“Mommy, don’t go!”
“I won’t. I’m right here. Scooch over.” It was a tight fit, but Kara managed to squeeze in beside her on the twin-size mattress. She pulled the blanket over them and sang a lullaby until Lilah fell asleep.
Chapter Three
Kara woke up the next morning, stiff. She rolled off Lilah’s mattress, careful not to wake her. Downstairs, she stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders, then flipped off the foyer light. The house was still asleep, but outside a morning dove cooed. Grabbing her cellphone, she crept out the front door. It was early, but the sun had been up for at least an hour.
Kara clicked on her phone, seeing immediately no one had called. She also noticed she had no cell reception. She waved the phone around, then walked around the yard, willing a cell tower to find her. After a few minutes, she gave up and returned to the porch. Sitting on the top step, she leaned back, resting on the palms of her hands, and gazed at the hills, taking in the countryside. Because of the sweeping trees edging the front border of the property, she could only catch glimpses of the road where the driveway bottomed out and then again where the lane reappeared as it rounded the bend, curving farther away from town.
Frogs from a nearby spring croaked, locusts clacked, and a woodpecker had joined in with the morning dove. Kara leaned forward, noticing two cows grazing in the distance on a steep hill. She had never been neighbors with cows and found it both fascinating and slightly worrisome at the same time. Did cows stink? Were there bulls around? If so, should she avoid wearing red outside? She chuckled at her last thought.
When she turned to look at her driveway, her breath caught. She was surprised to see someone walking up. The stranger was probably in her sixties, her face tan and her short hair a mix of light brown and gray. Her stride was steady, revealing her good physical shape. She glanced up at Kara, flicking her bangs to the side, and raised a hand. Kara, returning the wave, met her on the driveway.
“Good morning!” the woman called, her voice loud and raspy. “I’m Diane Foreman.”
“Good morning! I’m Kara Tameson.”
Diane’s smile thinned as she dragged a dirty gardening glove from her pocket and pulled it onto her hand. “I own the property to the east of you, the lemon house. We’re neighbors.”
“Oh,” Kara nodded, glancing at the house next door. “My daughter and I noticed the beautiful color of your house.”
“Stands out, I suppose.” Diane sounded regretful. “So, it’s just you, your husband, and your daughter that’s moved in then?”
“And our son.”
Diane frowned, looking toward Kara’s front porch. “I missed him.”
“Yep, there’s four of us.”
Diane turned her muddy brown eyes on Kara and smiled stonily. “Gonna be a hot day. Got to get the gardening done before the heat sets in. Do you garden?”
“Not re—” Kara flinched, catching sight of something black swooping low from overhead. She covered her head even though the bird was already rising, moving away. She had glimpsed its ugly, withered face before the black-feathered creature swept up high in the sky.
“Turkey vulture,” Diane replied in disgust.
“Do they usually come so close?”
“If you have any small dogs, keep an eye on ’em when they’re out. Turkey vultures will scoop ’em up real quick.” The bird circled them for a moment before moving off toward the treetops at the edge of the woods.
Kara watched, waiting for it to swoop down again, and said distractedly, “We don’t have any pets. I’ve never actually had any. That’s probably a little embarrassing to admit.” She broke her gaze from the sky, chuckling as she looked at Diane, but Diane didn’t smile.
“Just make sure you don’t get a small animal, not like it’ll matter anyhow. Marvin, my husband, and I had a schipperke. The dog was small, only a couple years old. Never saw anything like it. It was a long time ago. We let Blacky out as you do. We thought nothing of it. Schipperke’s a small dog, but a sheep dog can normally take care of itself. After a while, I went to let him back in. At first, I thought, him not being a fixed dog, that he was nosin’ around. But, then, as I walked into the backyard, the woods there…” She gestured toward the trees behind her house. “I saw what had happened…”
“He was killed?” Kara was horrified. Her eyes flitted over the trees. There was no sign of the vulture now and everything was oddly still; even the birds had stopped, making the yard feel strangely muted.
Diane rubbed her nose with the back of her forearm. “Just be careful if you let any pets loose. If I were you, I’d stay with them when they go outside.”
Kara nodded as if they had made a pact. “If we get a pet, I’ll make sure we stay with it.” Her promise sounded hollow even to her. But how could she make a promise for something that didn’t exist? None of them, not even the kids, had expressed a desire to have a pet.
“Good.” Diane’s eyes combed over the front of the Tamesons’ house. “Pretty house you have here. I hope you enjoy it.”
“Thank you, I’m sure we will.”
Diane pulled on the other gardening glove and turned away, starting her descent down the driveway. When she had made it halfway down, she took the stepping stones and detoured onto the grass, crossing through the lawn until she eventually disappeared through the tree-line to her property.
Kara looked up at the empty sky, then directed her gaze again at Diane’s house, feeling awkward. Wondering what words of wisdom her other neighbors would share with her, she turned back to her house. As she stepped onto the porch, her cellphone trilled.
Looking down, she smiled, seeing Tracy’s number displayed on the screen. “Hey, Tracy! I have a signal, after all!” She sat on the top step.
“Hey, stranger. So, what’s going on? Friends call friends.”
Kara laughed, hearing the smile in Tracy’s voice. “I know, I’m sorry. I was going to call today.”
“I figured you’ve been busy. How’s country living?”
“I don’t know yet.” Kara glanced at the yellow house. “We still have to unpack and return the moving truck.”
Tracy groaned. “I hate moving.”
Kara stretched out her legs. “Are you checking up on me to give my mom a full report?”
“She cares about you.”
“You can tell her we moved in. Nobody died, no one was hurt.”
“Oh, that’s a relief!” Tracy laughed. When Kara didn’t comment, Tracy said, “I’ll just tell her you guys made it safely...I wasn’t just asking for her, you know.”
“We’re fine. I even met a neighbor.”
“Ah, replacing me already!” They laughed, both satisfied they wouldn’t end on a sour note. “Well, I’ll leave you to the unpacking.”
After they said goodbye, Kara hesitated, then scrolled through her phone’s contact list, stopping on her mother’s name. Sighing, she tapped it and sent a quick text:
Made it to the new house. Still unpacking.
Kara went inside, not noticing her text had failed and the cellphone screen displayed, “No service.”
Nobody went inside the old apartment when they returned to the familiar building. None of the Tamesons sensed nostalgia for the worn-down building they had called home for several years. John and the kids waited in the moving truck, while Kara hopped into his parked car. They followed her to the rental facility, turned in the truck, and then they all rode together in his car back to the new house. It was a long, boring drive, but Lilah napped through most of it and Jack played a handheld vide
o game.
When they returned home, John and Kara assembled beds, suggesting the kids go outside. The idea was something of a novelty. They were used to playing indoors, with the occasional trip to the nearest playground. Notorious for dirty syringes and strewn garbage, the kids hadn’t gone often, nor had other children.
The summer sun glimmered through the leaves and the temperature had risen, but Jack and Lilah didn’t mind the heat. They wandered through the backyard woods, weaving around trees.
“Where’re we going?” Lilah asked, her stubby legs finding it an effort to keep up with Jack.
He grunted noncommittally.
“Will we see rabbits, Jack?” she asked, recalling the one she had seen the day before.
“Maybe. There’s the neighbors’ house.” Jack stopped and pointed straight ahead, glimpsing the yellow house through the trees. Sunlight struck the upstairs corner of the two-story, making it beam glaringly white.
“Does that house glow in the dark?” Lilah asked, awed.
“No.”
Assuming they had reached the eastern boundary of their yard, Jack turned and started heading west. Lilah, however, stayed put. Through the trees, she could see flowerbeds and a vegetable garden running from the edge of the woods to the Foremans’ rear sun porch. The flowers reminded her of the gardens fairies lived in, as depicted in her favorite picture book.
“Come on, Lilah!”
“Oh!” She jumped and hurried to Jack’s side.
They saw nothing extraordinary at first. The only animals they came across were birds, but there was nothing interesting about that. Jack had hoped to at least run into a squirrel or, better yet, a snake.
“What’s that? A truck?” Lilah stopped a few yards behind him.
He stopped, his eyes following the angle to where she pointed at the woods ahead, the side yard nearest town.
From his angle, he couldn’t see what she saw. “What do you mean, a truck? On the street?” But the trees were too dense to see the road.
“Huh-uh. A truck in the woods.”
He backed up until he was standing beside her. Squatting down at her level, he studied the trees. It took him a moment to see it.
“What’s that?” Through his partially-obstructed view, he saw something light-colored. It did look like a small truck. “Is that a truck?”
“I dunno.” Lilah shrugged awkwardly.
“C’mon.” Jack headed purposefully to the woods. Lilah hobbled behind. After passing through a row of trees and sidling carefully past the brush, Jack feasted his eyes on it. There was, in fact, a small pop-up camper in the woods.
“A truck!” Lilah exclaimed, working her way through a narrow opening, impressively avoiding the xanthiums’ burrs.
The camper had seen better days. Its ivory exterior was dirty from exposure to outside elements and splattered mud. Splashes of rust-orange paint coated its sides, and the fabric pop-up was shredded, its canvas sides hanging down in crude strips. Jack crept up to the partially-open metal door. It was missing a screen and dented as if it had been kicked shut several times. He pulled it open. Debris covered the floor and countertop; paper plates, patio chair cushions, a fire extinguisher, and a pair of bleach-stained jeans lay among the mess. Jack pocketed a toy metal star from the heap.
“Let me see in, Jack!” Lilah shoved his back.
He shrugged her off easily. “It’s just a mess. There’s nothing to see.”
“I wanna see!”
He backed away. “It’s a mess, Lilah. You’ll get hurt hanging around here.” He used words his mom would say just to get her to back off. He, however, pictured this as an awesome place for further exploration. He didn’t need Lilah nosing around.
As if he had channeled her, Kara called them to lunch. Jack peered through the trees, seeing her on the deck. She called again, scanning the yard, but he stayed still until she went back inside.
“Come on,” he said to Lilah, stepping out of the woods and crossing the lawn, putting distance between the camper and him. When he got to the deck, he waited. Lilah passed the swimming pool, combing her hand over its plastic side, her head not even close to clearing its height. He blurted, “You can’t tell Mom and Dad anything about the truck, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because they’ll say we can’t play in it and you know how cool it is, right?” That was true; they’d never let them play in it, especially not in its current state. “I’m gonna clean it up first and then we’ll surprise them.”
“Okay, I won’t say anything.”
“You promise?”
“Uh-huh. I promise.”
Kara was at the kitchen sink when they tromped inside. “There you are. See anything interesting outside?”
“Not really,” Jack replied. He stole a glance at Lilah, but she had wandered down the hallway. Noticing the food on the L-shaped kitchen counter, her asked, “What’re we eating?”
“We have carrots, chips and macaroni and cheese. Wash your hands first.”
Jack took off for the powder room.
“Mommy, where’s the mac and cheese?” Lilah whined from the hallway. She made her way back to the kitchen, as if she had been lost.
“It’s on the kitchen counter. Where did you go off to?” Kara asked with a laugh.
“I’m hungy.” Lilah started to reach for the tub of noodles, but Kara stopped her, foreseeing a gooey mess on the ceramic tiled floor. She handed it to John, who had just walked into the room.
“It’s ‘hungry,’ ” Kara corrected. “Wash your hands and then you can eat.” John plopped food onto their plates while Kara got them water. She set the cups on the table before surveying the adjoining great room. Seeing familiar furniture throughout the house made it feel more like home. Some of the pieces had been purchased used and all of it was cheap. They didn’t fit the expansive room perfectly, but they made it home, and in time, they’d be able to fill the rooms with proper chairs, sofas and ottomans.
When her family was seated, Kara held up her cellphone and snapped a photo of Jack and John chatting as Lilah looked down, selecting a chip.
“Okay, this time, everybody look at me,” Kara chuckled. The three heads turned. “Smile!” They grinned and she took the photo, capturing shared excitement on their faces.
“That was a good one.” She looked up from the phone, her eyes glimpsing the great room again. She frowned, noticing the door to the unfinished playroom was open halfway.
“Who opened that door?” She crossed the room and shut it. “Don’t open this door until we’ve fixed the room.”
John turned around to look as she returned to the kitchen. “Oh, yeah. Guys, you can’t go in there. That room still needs to be finished.”
“It’s dangerous,” Kara told the kids. “There are nails and wood on the floor. Okay?”
“Okay,” Jack said.
“Okay,” Lilah echoed.
“You can get hurt. That room is off limits.” Kara looked at them pointedly.
John asked with a mouthful of food, “So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?”
“More unpacking.” Kara swallowed a bite of macaroni. “Why? What did you have in mind?”
He shrugged. “I guess the same.”
“What do you mean? We have a lot more to do.”
“Well…” He gave her a mischievous smile.
“John.”
“What’re we doing tomorrow?” Jack asked with interest.
John baited him, “What do you want to do?”
“What’re we doin’?” Lilah asked.
“John,” Kara said.
John laughed. “I was thinking we could explore a little. See the town.”
“Not tomorrow. You go back to work soon and I need help.”
“We’ll have time to finish unpacking this weekend. I have a few more days until I have to go back. We can even run errands, like grocery shopping, mailing stuff at the post office…”
“The post office?” Kara wrinkled her brow.
Jack scowled at that.
“Check out preschools…”
“Preschools?” Jack was aghast.
“For Lilah,” Kara explained.
John asked, “Wouldn’t you rather go to preschool than regular school? It’s all coloring and naptime.”
Kara shook her head, chewing a chip. “We can go grocery shopping tomorrow, because that can’t wait. I don’t see why we can’t dedicate one more day getting things set up before becoming full-fledged members of the community.”
“I don’t want to wait,” Jack moaned.
“Don’t start.” Kara brought her cup to her lips just as the doorbell chimed.
“Is that the doorbell?” Jack jumped up from the table.
“Jack, wait for Dad!” Kara called.
“Let’s see who it is,” John said, following him to the front door.
“Me too!” Lilah ran after them.
Kara stayed seated, suddenly anxious it was her mother popping in on them. Tense, Kara told herself that would be out of character.
“Huh,” she heard John say.
She hesitated before joining the family at the door. “Who is it?”
“I don’t know.” John stepped onto the porch, his eyes drawing in the yard. “Apparently nobody.”
She stepped out behind him, just clearing the entryway, and looked out over the lawn. No one huddled, hiding, in the wide oak dead-ahead; nobody ran down the road, laughing they had gotten away. “Is the doorbell broken?”
John pressed the button, hearing it chime, and looked at it briefly.
“Who was it?” Jack asked.
“We don’t know,” Kara said, looking down the vacant road again before going back inside. The others followed and they sat down at the kitchen table. After a couple minutes, the doorbell chimed again. Kara set down her water. “Okay, this is getting annoying.”
John hurried to the front door, intent on catching the culprit. The kids ran after him.
This time someone had materialized at the door. An unfamiliar male voice carried into the kitchen. Kara heard them, but couldn’t make out what anyone was saying until she heard John say, “Come on in.”
Housewarming Page 3