Saucer in the Dunes

2 Settling In

The move was just a blur, mostly because I didn't want to do it. It still feels like I went to sleep in Atlanta and woke up in Kingston. The little town didn't look so bad, but it wasn't home, not by a long shot. If there was something that could be considered downtown, then just like in Atlanta, we lived pretty close to that. And dad, he made a big deal of pointing that out.

Sitting in the back seat of mom's car, watching the scenery go by, I felt alone. They were happy, holding hands and smiling. I had to trust them, especially mom.

We turned down another quiet little street not too far from the freeway and passed several other houses with neatly kept lawns. I didn't see anyone, though, no kids, no dogs, nothing. Suddenly we bumped over the curb and into the driveway of our new home.

The house was larger, that's for sure, but older, at least I thought so. There was a big front porch and stairs down to the sidewalk. There was a carport and a separate garage. Dad leaned over the seat and told me there would be plenty of room for all our projects in there. There was a lot of grass, especially in the backyard. We had one big tree; dad said it was a Scarlet Oak. It shaded a good bit of the driveway, even some of the front porch. It was neat and all, but it wasn't home, at least not yet.

Only two weeks out of school, and I was in a different bedroom and already unpacking my toys. It was bigger than my room in Atlanta, but it was darker and hotter and more empty too. Moving boxes were in the middle of the room in a neatly stacked pile that nearly touched the ugly metal light hanging from the center of the ceiling. My bed was leaning against the wall and not put together. My bookcases were in the guest bedroom. My mom's clothes were in my room. Nothing was where it should have been. I remember the smell was like damp wallpaper, and it was hot. I had felt city heat, but this was worse, far worse. I hadn't done anything, and already I felt the sweat on the back of my neck and underarms. I remember the day felt like it was going to last forever.

"Oh! I don't see how you can breathe in here!"

Mom pushed past me, and after banging on the window frame a few times with her tiny hands, she lifted the window. Instantly air began to circulate in the room; still, it was hot air.

"There, that's better. Don't you think?"

"If you say so," I shrugged.

"I'll bring you a fan in a minute. You better get to work, mister. You don't want to spend the rest of the summer unpacking, do you?"

She moved quickly back out of the room, rubbing the top of my head as she breezed by. I could hear her shouting for my dad to put my bed together. I didn't mind spending the rest of the summer unpacking. There wasn't anything else to do, so I said it out loud.

"I heard that, mister!" mom called from somewhere else in the house.

It made me smile; she could always hear me. I knew I wasn't in trouble, not yet anyway. She and dad were both in a good mood. They usually were, even back home, but this was different. I had seen dad kiss mom a million times. Here it was different. I had never seen them act this way. They played and laughed, like the teenagers used to do back home at the movies. I could tell they were happy, and when they were happy, it was hard not to try at least to be happy too.By that evening, I was worn slap out. My room was still not completely finished, but at least all the furniture was in there, and all my mom's clothes were out. You could see the floor, and it was all wood, all of it. Dad had helped me arrange the bookshelves on the wall across from my bed. He also used fishing wire and hung up my USS Enterprise and Klingon battle cruiser models that I built, what was left of them anyway, casualties of the moving company. That made the room look much better. My closet was enormous and not half as full as my old one. It was lit by a single bare bulb with a pull chain to turn on and off. I had to put away all my books and toys and was just about to carry the last of the empty boxes into the den when mom called us for dinner. Those words never sounded so sweet.