Chapter 28: New
Beginnings
Sarah sat on the step
outside the apartment one day watching Joe play with chalk on the sidewalk. A
tall blonde boy came up the walk and startled her by sitting down beside her.
It was Leo. Sarah couldn’t have been more surprised had a green alien bid her
“good day” and beamed her up to his space ship.
He said, “Hi!” After a pause
he said, “I live just up the street there. What are you doing here? I thought
you lived outside of town?”
Sarah was a little taken
aback. “Not anymore”, she said. “We had a fire. This is just temporary. We’ll
be leaving soon and moving back to Raleigh.”
“Oh.” He said, “I’m really
sad to hear that. I was really hoping we could get to know each other a little
bit more. You keep away from the rest of us most of the time.”
This of course, was not the
case. She did not “keep away” from the other teens. She just didn’t have a lot
of opportunity to be around them. “Well, we can talk now.” Sarah said, “At
least, as long as Joey here doesn’t mind.”
Joey said, “Look what I
made. It’s a truck, and it can drive all the way down this road.” He proceeded
to tell Leo all about what he had drawn on the sidewalk. Even though most of it
looked like chicken scratch, Leo was very patient and listened to everything
Joey had to say, and even made comments and suggestions about it. When Joey finally
got tired of sharing and couldn’t get this new big person to join him, he went
back to his game and Leo and Sarah were able to talk finally.
At first she was a little
hesitant. She had built up in her mind how it would be to talk to him. She was
surprised at how easy it was. They talked about school versus homeschool, and
what their families were like and what they liked to do. Leo had grown up and
lived in the town his whole life. He only had one brother who was two years
younger than him. His parents ran a shop on the Main Street that sold feed and
other farm supplies. He loved to play soccer and basketball and had dreams and
aspirations of going to college out of state some day. He wanted to go and see the
world if he could.
Sarah talked about her
family and the work she did for her schooling. She didn’t know yet what she
wanted to do, writing might be fun, but traveling sounded like a terrific idea.
She told him about the dog bite and the fire, and even cried a little. She
didn’t cry to get sympathy, she couldn’t help it when she thought about those
things, but he gave her a hug and that was really nice. They were out there so
long that Joey got tired of his game and went inside before they were done. Karen
was inside. She saw the two on the doorstep and decided to leave them be. It
wasn’t often poor Sarah got to hang out with kids her age, and boys were
especially rare.
Leo came by several days
after that, each day after school, and even came in and met the whole family.
Karen offered him a snack, and it was really nice to have a visitor to take
their mind off of all the other craziness of trying to catch up with schoolwork,
washing and stowing things, and figuring out what they still had and what they
had lost. The craziness of the family in general never abated, of course. While
Sarah, Karen, Leo, and Jack talked at the little four-seat kitchen table in the
apartment, Joe and Emma were underneath the table with trucks playing, and
Yeller was under there with them purring and rubbing against them and meowing. Yeller
wouldn’t stop until Sarah realized that Ellie hadn’t fed her that morning.
It was during this time that
they got a letter from Justin. He said that his Grandparent’s house was O.K.
His mom had found a job, so she was gone a lot, but he didn’t have to come home
to an empty house anymore. His Grandma made the best cinnamon rolls in the
universe. He had to sleep on the sofa, but there was a little dog there named
Scooter that liked to sleep on the sofa with him, and he liked the company. School
was ok. He wasn’t doing as poorly as before, and it helped that there were new
teachers that didn’t already know he was a lazy slacker (his words). He had
been a little bit behind, but he had classes to help him catch up to his grade.
He went on to say that he had
even better news. His dad had come back. His parents were still getting a
divorce, but his dad had come and said he was sorry for going away and that he
would try to be around more often. Justin said he had decided to give his dad
another chance even though he was still pretty angry. Justin got to see him on
weekends. His dad would take him out places and show him things. During the
week, his dad was trying to find a job.
Ellie was glad Justin had
written. She had wondered how he was doing and it sounded like things weren’t
prefect, but that he would be O.K. She could definitely imagine having to move,
they had never lived in one place for more than four years or so. She couldn’t
imagine her parents not wanting to be together anymore, however. The thought of
it was so distressing that she blocked it from her mind. She was glad Justin
was O.K., even if he was a creep.
On the weekends they all
drove up to Raleigh and started their house hunting. As hard as it was to move everyone
down to the sandhill region for a year, the kids were mostly just as sullen
about moving again back to Raleigh. Jack was mad about loosing his chickens.
Ellie had really enjoyed the birds and the bugs and the room to roam. Emma and
Joe, being little, just didn’t like change in any form. Sarah had her own
private reasons, but mostly they had to do with a couple of friends she had
made. The fact that they didn’t have a house anymore and were shoehorned into
the little apartment made it easier to think of trying to find a new home, but
they all knew that it was a step to leaving the new friends they had made and
that made it a bit sad.
Rose and David said they
would love to take the remaining chickens off their hands. David and Johnathan
spent a couple of days building a new chicken coop in the Shwartz’s yard. The
men acted like it was another onerous chore to do, but anyone looking at them
could tell they loved doing it. It also gave the kids an excuse to invade the
Shwartz home again and beg some more baked goods off of Rose.
The second day they were
there she had made some wonderful smelling fresh yeasty bread, but she said
that they couldn’t have any until everyone had done some work in the garden.
Being summer, Rose’s garden was something to behold. It was everything the Katz
garden had aspired to be but would never be. Rose had a section of tomatoes
that were big and beautiful. They came in a number of different shapes and
colors. She also had peas growing up trellises. They were mostly done blooming
and covered in big green pods. There was also cucumber, bushy carrots, and
beets in neat rows, peeking their multi-colored heads just slightly above the
dark rich soil. The garlic and onion bulbs looked ready to pull out of the
ground. She showed them the worms in the soil and the ladybugs on the leaves.
There were herbs too: basil, rosemary, thyme, sage, and oregano. She encouraged
them to take a leaf or too from each and smell them. Joey especially liked this
idea. He got a sample and smelled each and then decided to put them all into a
“stew” with some dirt and flowers. When they had been out there a while, David
brought in some blueberries from his roadside stand and they had a nice snack
that day of blueberries and fresh bread.
The house hunting was more
difficult than they imagined. They wanted to find a place more suited to them
than their previous home. It was crucial that they not be too far away from
Karen’s parents in Chapel Hill. They wanted to be close to things, but they
also wanted a bit of room to spread out. However, they couldn’t really afford
what they wanted. It was a circus getting five kids in and out of the car, and
each time they stopped at a new home to look, it took five minutes just to
unbuckle and get everyone out. The realtor was extremely patient though. Everyone
wanted to be part of the decision, so no one was left behind, and the circus
commenced each weekend.
Everyone was usually grumpy
and whiney by the end of the long days. None of the houses were right. Some
were too small, some had too many stairs, some were huge, but they couldn’t
afford the price, and some were in new well-manicured subdivisions the Katz’s
just couldn’t see themselves in. Finally, one day after a long drive up to
Raleigh, made longer by the multiple bathroom stops Joe and Emma needed, they went
to go see an older house tucked into an unincorporated part of the county. It
was fairly close to most everything, but also didn’t have the usual taxes and
utilities, and even better, it was on an acre of land. There were four bedrooms
and a basement, which could be used as an office or schoolroom. There were
three bathrooms. The kitchen was rather old, but there was a fairly large
breakfast area that would work well for them. It seemed perfect. They started
to get excited about it and also about getting to see some of their old friends
again.
Two weeks later, it looked
like they were going to have this house for their home, and everyone started
planning which room they wanted, where the beds would go, and where they would
put the few things they had. They didn’t actually have beds to put in the rooms
yet, so there were also going to be some furniture hunting trips. They needed
beds and a kitchen table, living room furniture and new kitchen appliances,
pots and pans and dishes. It was going to take time to find what they wanted,
but they probably wouldn’t get another opportunity like this again for new
stuff. The insurance was covering it all. Johnathan sent a silent prayer of
thanks that he had made sure they were well covered in that regard. It would
have been very easy to let it slide and then forget about it. Still, they might
be sleeping on the floors of the new house for a little bit until they could
get something to sleep on.
All of this was taking a
tremendous amount of time from Johnathan’s work, though, and that was
difficult. His sabbatical time was up and the college wanted him to teach some
courses this next semester on top of everything else. He didn’t know when or
how he was going to prepare for those, or to keep up with his grant work when
every spare moment was taken up with house negotiations, childcare, and
driving. Karen was frazzled from trying to manage all of the kids and all of
the driving and she was feeling stressed about the fact that almost no school
work had been done in the past month. They typically worked year-round, and this
allowed them to be more leisurely about things and feel like they could take
breaks when they needed to. This year had been far from usual and she could
feel them slipping farther and farther behind. She knew that in the long run if
a few worksheets didn’t get done it wasn’t a huge deal, but it didn’t stop her
from stressing about it. She couldn’t wait until they were finally settled and
she could put their life back together into something resembling a schedule.
With some help from Rose and
David (those two were such a blessing), they finally closed on the house and began
the process of moving everything up to it. It was fortunate in a way that there
wasn’t that much furniture to move, but they still needed to rent a truck and
get some help to move everything.
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