A pain in the ass Friday, too much work, too many sick kids, too much up in the air.
It seemed I might get stuck there for a while, I looked out at the gray, drowsy sky and I just wanted to lie down and sleep for a while, but then I broke through, started rolling, banging out one thing after another, I might get out in time to pick up the kids after all, yes I got this.
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Finishing up, just a half hour late, practically nothing, shutting down for the week, and I see an email come in.
Dear Mr. and Mrs Chach,
I just got the clear to close from our compliance department...
Clear to close.
I really am moving out of here.
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Nine years.
Moved in for three months. Nine years ago.
Moved in a couple of weeks before my fortieth birthday. Moved in for three months, maybe six. Just while we looked for our next house. And now my fiftieth lurks a half a year away.
Probably the most tumultuous decade of my life, lived inside these walls.
A baby born to a wife who died fourteen months later.
Another marriage, another baby.
Who the hell can see the future, and who the hell would want to.
When I rang in my fortieth I couldn't have imagined what lie in waiting for us. I always talked about how much I knew, because of what had happened to prior generations inside these same wall, how thin the line that separates us from disaster, but in my heart of hearts I saw blue skies and sunshine out in front of us for years.
I wouldn't have said it out loud and maybe didn't even realize it consciously, but I think I thought the utterances of that awareness served as some sort of inoculating prayer, a spell that would make sure any unwanted cups never came to our lips.
It didn't go down that way.
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The only one who doesn't want to move is the nine year old. Twice this week, I had to go to him in his bed, having heard him crying in the dark.
I want to live hear forever, Dad, he said. That other house will never be home.
The rest of them can't wait to get out. The first thing my oldest asks me when I get home from work every day is when are we moving? Did you hear anything today?
I can see why.
The place is old and tired. It needs us to leave, it needs to sit empty for a bit, for the first time in decades, so that its wounds can heal. Cracks in walls need filling in and painting over, the floors need sanding down and a new shine put on them, the kitchen needs new cabinets.
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Why do you want to stay here? I ask him. The new house is nice. There's more room. It's right across the street from Nana and Papa. I think you're going to like it.
No I'm not.
I think you might be surprised once we're in there for a bit.
Nope. I'm not going to like it.
You'll always have your memories of this place. Our memories. No one can take that from you.
I don't want to move. Maybe you can stay here with me and Mom can go with everyone else to the new house.
Evie pipes up.
The new house is way nicer Riley.
He cries some more.
If the new house blows up does that mean we have to keep looking for a new house? he asks.
I guess so.
He smiles.
I don't think the new house is going to blow up, though. We had it inspected you know. The guy said it's in good shape.
You don't know that, Dad.
There's no arguing with this kid, I think. He does not want to go.
Well when I turn eighteen I am just going to move back in here. So I guess it's like a nine year sleep-over, right?
I hadn't thought of it that way.
Kid, I wanted to say, when you get old, and have suffered the slings and arrows of adulthood, every night seems like a sleep-over, and every morning you wake up seems like a miracle.
Well, I think your aunt and uncle will still own the place by then, so yeah, maybe you can move back in.
He smiles, and calms down. I sit at the edge of his bed for a minute or two, listening to his breathe, coming heavier and slower, one after another.
Good night, I say.
Mm hmm he says in reply.
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It's hard for a nine year old to communicate with a forty-nine year old, and maybe harder still when the younger is the son and the elder is the father.
I want him to feel excited about the move, like his brother and sisters, but I think I understand.
He's never known anything else.
This is the only place he's every lived.
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I walk through the streets of my hometown, the sky bright with clouds, a refreshing coolness in the air, autumn around the bend for sure. A tough time of year. You know the fall, despite its dazzling beauty, behind the scorching colors of its leafs, behind the majestic gray, swollen skies, it carries winter's deathly kingdom on its back.
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I can remember the weeks after she died, how he sat there in his high chair, every time someone darkened the back door, he would sit up, and look out there, at that door, a smile of anticipation on his face, and my heart would sink, for I suspected he thought that the mother he hadn't seen in too long was about to come through that door, and I knew that she never would.
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I'm nervous, I'm excited; I wonder if he doesn't want to move because somewhere deep down inside, in a place he can not yet recognize, still believes his mother is going to walk through that back door.
She's not. And we're not staying here much longer. We're moving on.
He's going to have to get used to that.
And so am I.