I.
My layoff was the catalyst. But, not in the way you would think – not financially. It had been expected with our small lending company being bought by a conglomerate. Of course, I had hoped that I would be able to stay on longer, but in the end, I was one of the “lucky” ones. We had scrimped and saved for over a year in preparation for it, and then I was able to find a job that I could transition into without missing any work time.
Of course, it meant moving… again. The second time in 8 months. I hate moving. But, financially, it just made more sense. Why stay in Richmond when both Adam and I would be working up north?
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The house was downtown; two stories with a separate basement and fenced yard. It was built in the 1920s, and had the Victorian character I loved; wood floors, wide moldings, windows with cylinder glass, and my favorite part – a claw foot tub in the main floor bathroom. It was also in a great location - a short walk to a corner coffee shop where we could go on Sunday mornings and watch the morning runners from the college down the street, and from the large library where local musicians would perform on Friday nights. There were old, beautiful homes surrounding ours, and a tea shop right across the street. It was everything I was hoping to find.
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We moved into the house over Labor Day weekend, hiring moving assistance to get everything into the truck, but doing the remainder of the work ourselves. We had sold or donated most of our furniture 8 months prior and had little left to move.
We began unloading the furniture and boxes early that morning after we dropped Micah off at daycare. It was going pretty well, and we quickly emptied most of the truck. Around one o’clock, we decided to take time to eat some lunch, so the back of the truck was locked and we went inside the house. Adam started making the sandwiches and I walked to the door at the end of the kitchen, which led into the backyard.
As I looked out into the yard, a movement near the rear of the property caught my eye. There was a mid-size black dog that seemed to be caught in the gap between our neighbor’s fence and ours.
“Oh poor thing”, I thought, and went out to try to help it. As I neared the back of the yard, the dog looked up at me and I saw a flash of green. His eyes appeared to glow.
Although I found this strange, I continued to carefully approach the dog to see if I could help. Shortly before reaching the animal, I heard someone speak from the house on the other side of the fence.
“That’s my dog.”
As I looked up to find the speaker, the dog squirmed free and darted away.
A man was standing on a second floor balcony. I speculated that he was in his late-thirties, and probably nearing 300 pounds, unshaven, with close-cropped hair and a dirty wife beater and grease-stained cut-offs.
“I was going to try and help him out of the fence.” I replied.
“He’s fine. Also… you might hear my dogs sometimes. They fight.” The man said.
I didn’t reply.
“You guys just moving in?”
“Yeah…” I said as I started to turn toward the house.
“Nice to meet you.” he said.
“You too…” I mumbled as I turned and walked back to the house.
