Chapter 13
Keanna
I know two things for certain by the time this day is over:
RV’s are really cool and super modern inside. The technology and sleek designs are awesome and it’s really fun looking through them at the RV sales lot.
There’s no way my family could live in one.
I mean seriously. No way at all. Even the biggest one on the lot that had three bedrooms and a loft and a nearly full size kitchen just isn’t big enough.
Not to mention it was three hundred thousand dollars.
To make things worse, no one in our family owns a truck with the towing capacity to move a big RV around.
The little ones, sure, but not the ones that are built to be lived in full time.
You’d have to spend another eighty thousand dollars on a new truck just to move it.
No thanks. I’d rather buy an actual house that doesn’t move!
It might even be cheaper! Even though my parents said we could set up an RV on their property, I think it would be a huge waste of money to buy one of these things and then pay to get it set up on their land, only for us to move back into our newly built house just a few months later.
Maybe if we planned on traveling the country with it, but we don’t.
I am not exactly the most bougie person in the world, but I don’t want to travel in an RV.
I’d rather fly and stay in hotels. I need my space. I need a full size shower.
I need room service.
“At least we looked into it,” Jett says after we say goodbye to the friendly salesman who’d walked us around the lot for the last two hours. “Now we can’t say we haven’t tried everything.”
“Pretty fake houses,” Harper says from the back seat.
Out of the three of us, she had the most fun running up and down each RV and motorhome we toured. She climbed the ladders to every loft, opened every door, and stood in every super tiny shower.
“Do you want to live in one?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No way!”
I draw in a deep breath and sigh. Then I lean against the back of the truck seat and click my seatbelt into place. “I’m so sick of this. What are we going to do?”
“Here’s what we’re going to do--” He leans over the center console and gives me that quirky little grin of his that still makes my toes tingle, even after all these years. “We’re going to drive out of here…”
“Yeah?” I say, super curious about whatever it is he’s planning. Because he’s definitely planning something.
“And we’re going to go across town…”
“Okay…”
He wiggles his eyebrows, glancing at Harper who is totally enthralled in whatever he’s going to say. “And get a chocolate cake shake.”
“Yay!” Harper says, pumping her fists in the air.
I snort out a laugh and roll my eyes. “We can’t live in a chocolate cake shake.”
“No, but we’ll be able to think better with a dose of sugar. We’ll have the energy to plan out our next move.”
“If you say so.”
He grins, satisfied with himself as we leave the RV dealership.
They built a Portillo’s restaurant in town about a year ago and while their food is good, we fell in love with the chocolate cake shake.
It’s exactly what it sounds like. They take an entire slice of chocolate cake and mix it into the chocolate shake.
It’s divine. Every so often you’ll get a chunk of chocolate frosting in the straw and it’s delicious.
It’s totally not going to solve our housing problem, but it’ll be nice for about twenty minutes while I’m eating it.
Half an hour later, we’re parked in the back of the Portillo’s parking lot, quiet except the sounds of milkshake slurping up our straws. “This is really good,” I say.
“Delicious!” Harper says. Somehow her face is covered in chocolate.
“You’re welcome,” Jett says, “for my fabulous idea.”
“Thank you, Daddy!” she shouts.
I’m on my phone, searching for rental houses. “I guess the only other option is to expand the search area into neighboring towns.”
We look through everything in the next town over but any house that looks decent is too far away.
“I get to work at five in the morning most days,” Jett says. “I don’t really want to live an hour away.”
“Yeah, it’s too much. Plus Harper would have to go to kindergarten in another town, so if she got sick at school we’d have to drive an hour back to go pick her up.”
Harper gasps. “I don’t want Mommy and Daddy to be far away from me!”
I smile and touch her cheek. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to live that far away. We’ll find somewhere closer.”
“It might just be easier to suck it up and live with my parents,” Jett says. He drinks the last bit of his milkshake and sets the cup back in the cupholder.
“Wait,” I say, scrolling through my phone. I sit up straighter. “This house listing is updated. It used to be for sale, but now it says for sale or lease.” I turn the phone toward him. It’s a three bedroom single story home with an attached garage and a fenced in backyard.
“It’s not too far from here,” I say. “Can we drive by it?”
“Yeah, but we should be quick because I don’t want to leave Arko with my parents for too long. It’s almost his dinner time.”
We haven’t heard from this parents since we left, so hopefully Arko is doing well and not breaking anything else or getting mud everywhere.
I set the GPS to the location of this house and we head that way.
It’s in a part of town I’ve never visited before.
It’s older, mostly neighborhoods, and I think the Lawson Junior High is out here, too.
Jett slows to a crawl as we pass the house. There’s a car in the driveway and the grass needs to be mowed, but overall it’s not too bad looking from the outside. The neighborhood looks okay too.
“I don’t like it,” Harper says, curling her upper lip as we drive past it.
“Why not?” I ask. “We haven’t even seen the inside yet.”
She shrugs. “It’s not my blue house.”
“Even if it’s not the perfect house, it might still be a good house,” I tell her. “It’s just temporary, remember? Plus, we need a nice back yard for Arko.”
She doesn’t look convinced.
“Let’s call Mark and schedule a viewing ASAP,” Jett says. “Maybe this house will finally get us out of my childhood bedroom.”
We head toward the main road back home when Harper says, “Mommy? I have to potty.”
“We’ll be home in about fifteen minutes,” I say, turning around to face her. “Can you wait that long?”
“I have to potty now!” she squeals, kicking her feet.
I wish she had told us this before we left the restaurant, but four-year-olds love keeping you on your toes.
“Do you need me to stop now?” Jett asks.
“Yes! I have to potty!”
Frantically, I search for public restrooms on my phone. “There’s a new gas station two blocks that way,” I say. “Hopefully the restrooms aren’t a total nightmare.”
Jett grimaces but turns in that direction. Luck is on our side because the bathrooms are nice and clean, and we get in and out without any accidents on our hands. Once we get back in the truck, I set the GPS to home, even though Jett knows his way around this town way better than I do.
“Cherry Street?” he says, brows dipping as he looks at the screen. “I didn’t know Cherry Street went through to our side of town. He shrugs. “Let’s find out.”
We make our way down unfamiliar roads on the older part of town where giant oak trees sprawl out on front yards and drape over the roadway.
It’s beautiful. Unlike the newer neighborhoods where the homes are all so close together you can hear everything your neighbor is doing, these homes all have big yards and plenty of space between them.
I would love to live in a place like this.
Spaced out but with enough neighbors so your kids can still go trick-or-treating, unlike at my parent’s house where it’s only the two houses with the large dirt bike track in between them.
We drive in silence, all three of us checking out this part of town we’ve never seen before. Jett rolls to a stop at a three way intersection.
We all see it at the same time.
Harper shouts first. “My house!” she says.
“Holy shit,” Jett mutters under his breath.
“Whoa.” I lean forward. The two story house in front of us in an older home, not quite a Victorian home from a hundred years ago but close. It has a long covered porch stretching across the front, and two large bay windows upstairs.
But the weirdest thing about it is that it’s painted dark blue.
Where have I seen a house like this before?
Why does it look so familiar and yet not familiar at the same time?
I know for a fact I’ve never driven down this part of town.
I basically only know the way from my neighborhood to my parent’s place and to the grocery store. Jett drives us everywhere else.
“Why does it feel like I’ve seen this house before?” I wonder out loud.
“That’s my house!” Harper says again.
That’s when it hits me. Duh. She’s right--it is her house.
My jaw drops. “It’s just like your drawing.”
“Uh, babe?” Jett says in a serious way that makes chills prickle all over my body.
“What?” I say.
He points. “Is that what I think it is?”
It’s old, weathered and faded like it’s been there for a long time. But it’s still legible from the road. A plastic sign shoved in the ground and leaning against the mailbox.
FOR SALE BY OWNER
“Oh my gosh!” My eyes widen so hard they hurt a bit. “No way! Harper that house looks just like the one from your drawing, plus it’s for sale!”