Chapter 9
One month later, we move out of our small condo in Cambridge and into a two-hundred-acre estate in Vermont.
I’m on what I’m calling a sabbatical, though I know that’s not accurate.
I’m not doing research or writing a book.
I’m unemployed, straight up. It makes me hope that my belly begins to show soon.
So, if someone asks what I do, I can point at my belly and say, “See! I’m growing a baby.
I’m voluntarily taking time away from work to focus on my child.
” Topher was able to land a job as an ER doctor at a regional hospital, Green Mountain Medical, a few towns over.
The first week passes in a blur of unpacking, setting up the house, breaking down cardboard boxes and letting in a steady stream of utility workers.
We put Hugo in a kennel for the first two weeks, so we have a chance to get the house in order without him knocking over boxes and to move the more breakable of Ezra’s belongings, of which there are many.
Fortunately, the weather has turned gray and drizzly, which at least makes me feel better about being cooped up inside.
Most of our furniture we’ve put into storage for now.
It doesn’t make sense to move it until we know we are going to stay.
Plus, it would look wildly out of place here.
And would furnish just a fraction of the house.
The exception is our king-size bed, which we’ve moved into the room with The Forest of the Dead.
Topher thinks the mural is too unique not to use.
The painting gives me the creeps, but I agree because I want him to be happy here.
We have already been discovering quirks that can only be found in an old house like this.
Like the fact that the gaps between the broad pine floorboards in the parlor are so wide that I can see the basement light coming through when Topher pops down there to move something into storage.
Or the door to the primary bedroom, with an antique latch that never stays closed, no matter how certain I am that I’ve secured it properly.
Or the crooked window meant to keep out witches.
I was also surprised to discover that Ezra had a home security system installed.
There are sensors on all the windows and doors, even those on the second floor.
I guess I had an assumption that Newfield was one of those idyllic places where no one locked their homes or cars.
We decided to keep the system activated, which feels a little funny, given we never had alarms when we lived in the city.
But then again, Topher will be working the night shift almost exclusively at the beginning, so I suppose it’s not a bad thing.
Perhaps the most surprising thing to discover is that in Newfield Village, we have no cell service.
I didn’t think there was a place on Earth, or at least a habited place in the US, that didn’t have cell service.
I realized it on our first day, when I tried to order a pizza for dinner.
Ezra had kept a flyer for Pizza Haven tacked to a corkboard.
I called the number, but my phone kept saying “Call Failed” and I looked at Topher dumbfounded and said, “I think my phone is broken.”
We went to downtown Newfield and had dinner at Pizza Haven instead. When I told the server about our failed attempt at ordering delivery, she was amused both by our shock at the lack of cell service and the fact that we assumed anyone would deliver to Newfield Village at all.
“You’re out there, even for Vermont.” She laughed, shaking her head. “Don’t you have a landline?”
Topher and I looked at each other, eyes wide, and started laughing, as well.
“It didn’t even occur to us to look,” Topher said, a slightly sheepish look on his face.
City slicker, I mouthed to him, and we giggled again.
In the warm glow of the restaurant, with its tables covered by red-and-white-checkered tablecloths, I didn’t think much of her comment, about us being so far “out there.” But as we drove back to the house that night, on dark country roads illuminated only by our headlights, past the occasional lonely silhouettes of barns against the dark sky, I felt something akin to claustrophobia.
A feeling of panic at being so far from others, and essentially cut off from communication.
I decided to call our internet company first thing in the morning to expedite the setup and laughed to myself, in a way that made my chest feel tight, that I’d have to drive into town to make the call at all.