Walk Home Together

In 2007 we found ourselves in a rental house that smelled like cat urine. 

In my defense, I had about a week to locate somewhere for us to live when our original plan fell through, and at the walk-through the owner had covered the smell with tangerine scented air freshener, so I didn’t notice. The location was great and it was only temporary. We had sold a house at a good profit just prior to the housing market going into a free fall and we were a little paralyzed trying to figure out the best next move. 

We had planned to build again but extenuating circumstances made us reconsider, and I’m reflecting on how things worked out better than we could have ever expected. A year in cat-pee-house purgatory led us to Olivia Way. 

We definitely had a set budget. We had decided I wouldn’t go back to work after our youngest was born, since Will was now traveling overnight for work almost all week, every week. This was our time to reevaluate, budget and be practical. We wanted a house we could raise the boys in. We wanted bang for our buck. It was hard to find something that fit. 

At first I didn’t even want to look at the house. It was sitting there on Olivia Way in limbo, only about 60% complete since the spec builder had declared bankruptcy. The driveway wasn’t poured properly and had cracks in it. There wasn’t much living space. It was even ever so slightly off-center, a consequence of the builder shrinking the original plan without taking into account the window placement. 

But it had potential and we loved the neighborhood. 

After much deliberation and nail biting about being outbid, we ended up buying it from the bank and finishing it out. 

It had some quirks, to be sure. Somehow the den had a hump in it and we had to jackhammer it out in order to lay down the hardwood floors. And whatever shade tree fella we hired laid said floors in opposite directions from one room to another. I didn’t notice for a year after we moved in. We solved the lack of living space by adding on a screened-in porch. 

But we had a lovely home, with great neighbors and lots of kids for our boys to play with. Actually that’s an understatement: there were so many kids roaming around feral going from yard to yard that if you couldn’t find your own child, all you had to do was walk outside, grab the closest one and 9/10 times they knew where yours had been sighted most recently. 

Every school day at 6:55 am on the dot, the big yellow school bus pulled up and all the kids standing on the corner wiping Pop Tart crumbs off their faces scrambled onto it. There were always a couple of stragglers bringing up the rear, running down the street with their oversized backpacks bouncing while one of us moms in a bathrobe yelled at them “HAVE A GREAT DAYYYYYY!” 

They played Capture the Flag, built forts in the woods, bounced on each other’s trampolines, had lemonade stands, drew chalk masterpieces in the driveways, and Trick or Treated like it was an Olympic event. They Ding Dong Ditched ALL. THE. TIME. They rode bikes and skateboards and scooters and even unicycles.  When the ice cream man came trundling up the street in July every kid made a mad dash home to scramble up some dollars and quarters. It was a pretty sweet gift of a childhood. 

Christmas parties and cookouts and fish fries and birthday water ballon wars. Easter egg hunts and “reindeer food” sprinkled around the yard by the boys in their pajamas. 

We lived hard in that house. There were scars in the Sheetrock from a thousand brotherly scuffles and wayward lacrosse sticks. Holes peppering the screens from Airsoft wars. Occasionally I’d look up to see something like somebody’s underwear or a fishing lure hanging from the chandelier. Once the dog threw up something so foul on the carpet that it took three trips from the steam cleaner to get the smell out. 

Later on there were unauthorized parties and random kids coming in and out at will because our door code was the worst kept secret in town. Which I secretly loved. 

But when the kids grew up and the opportunity came to move on to new locations and adventures, I honestly wasn’t sad. I was just really, really thankful. That house held our little family of four in its walls through so much. 

There’s a new family in the house now. They fenced in the yard and changed out the planters. The magnolias and crepe myrtles are fully mature now and shade the patio completely. Another generation of feral children run laughing down the street at dawn to catch the school bus. 

And that’s as it should be.