Moving In

A few weeks later, we moved into our new home.

It wasn’t finished, not by a long shot, but it was livable.

And for me, it would become part of my paradise.

After months squeezed into Cabin #12 at Nanna’s resort, where Cathie and I shared a pull-out couch, the idea of having my own room, my own bed, felt like moving into a castle. There was space to stretch out, corners to explore, places to call mine.

I was giddy.

The house took some getting used to.

At first, the toilet wouldn’t flush, so we used a small shack twenty paces from the front door that Mom and Dad called the privy. The carpenters had used it while they built the house.

You’d go in, sit down on one of two side-by-side holes in the wooden seat, and do your business over a dark, stinking void.

On warm days, the smell could knock you flat.

I never understood the two holes. Why would anyone want to sit next to someone else during something so… personal?

Eventually it would be removed.

Inside, the kitchen had a regular faucet like we’d had in the city, which seemed like magic. But beside it stood a relic: a hand pump mounted to the counter, connected to our deep well.

If the faucet quit, usually because the pipes froze, you used the pump.

And if that didn’t work, you had to “prime it,” pouring a bit of water into the top to coax the flow.

Dad always kept a half-full bucket next to it, just in case.

Bathing was a weekly ritual. If the gas for the water heater ran out, or the pipes froze again, Mom would heat big pots of water on the potbellied stove. She’d pour them into a metal washtub in the middle of the kitchen, and we’d take turns, like pioneers.

Mom went first, then Dad, then Cathie and me.

It was rustic, but when you’re a kid, you don’t think of it as roughing it… unless you’re told to share your bathwater.

Then, maybe, you complain.

That first fall on Cotton Lake was warm and dry, with breezes off the water that cooled the house by evening. At night we’d open the windows and listen to frogs and crickets sing.

Sometimes a gentle rain would tap the roof, or a thunderstorm would roll across the lake, echoing through the trees.

Afterward, the smell of wet pine and birch and moss drifted through the screens.

It was like breathing pure life.

I remember standing barefoot on the back steps once, just to smell it.

We all felt safer now that King was home. He had nearly doubled in size, strong and proud and always alert. His presence made the house feel complete.

My bedroom had a single window looking out over the woods. At night, cool air slipped through the screens and owls called softly from the trees.

King usually started out sleeping at the foot of my bed.

But once the house grew still and everyone else drifted off, he’d sneak up beside me, curl his big warm body against mine, and rest his head on my chest.

That was our secret time, just the two of us.

I’d whisper to him about my day, tell him he was a good dog, and he’d reward me with a slow, wet lick across my cheek.

One night, lying there in the dark, I thought about everything that had happened since Dad first announced we were moving to Cotton Lake.

So much had changed.

And somehow, even though nothing had turned out exactly how I imagined…

everything felt exactly right.

I had found my place.

“Hey, Big Dog,” I whispered, hugging him like a brother. “How do you like our new home?”

He gave me that look I’d come to know, the one that meant he was smiling.

His tail thumped softly on the blanket.

And I realized something that night.

Even paradise has its dark places.

Sometimes it’s those shadows that make the light shine brighter.