She drove us through Alpharetta, down a winding two lane highway splitting pastures and woods with houses tucked here and there away from the road. At last we came to the intersection of Bethany and Providence Road, and there under a large oak tree, sat an old two story farm house. Ian craned forward to see. The house was covered with white clapboard siding and old black shutters. Sunlight blasted down the roof and scattered through deep green leaves then danced on the patchy lawn that swept back around the house, past a barn, and into open pasture.
“Do you like it?” Angie wanted to know.
“Is that where we’re going to live?”
“Yes.”
As the car tires rolled up the gravel driveway Ian grabbed the door handle and threw open the latch as soon as the car stopped. He sprang from his seat and lifted me into some shade.
“What do you think, Simon?”
“You mean I’ll get to spend more time outside?”
A rambling porch extended from the front bedroom to the corner of the house. Two large windows lead down the side of the house to a concrete step and a door which opened into the kitchen. A large storage room jutted out with large plate glass window in the middle of it. A windowed extension formed the back of the house. From there, Ian peered through a window, across the entire house.
“Can this be my bedroom?” He asked Angie, who was busy fumbling with the lock at the kitchen entrance.
“Yes,” she said, as the key successfully tumbled the lock, and the door swung open.
Ian carried me inside and placed me on the floor of the damp, cool kitchen. From my vantage point, I could see through another door leading into the back yard, with fences extending from the mouth of the barn. The ground was muddy from yesterday’s rain. Grass rolled up a hill across the pasture. I could see a brick house guarded by a pickup truck and a child’s play set stationed near the far fence.
Ian pushed open the door between the kitchen and the living room at the front of the house. Bare floor boards stretched the length of the living room. A door on the left opened on a dark and cramped wooden staircase rising to the second floor. Angie warned him to be careful as Ian clamored up the stairs. I listened and watched the ceiling as he shuffled over head.
“Hey! I can see through the floor boards to the room downstairs!” Ian called down.
“I know. It’s an old house!”
The house was indeed old, and settled, and quiet, as if no one had lived there for a very long time. Old wallpaper covered the kitchen walls. An old stove with oily brown spots sat lonely next to a wall. An old refrigerator on the opposite wall stood unused and totally silent. I watched Angie examine the kitchen cabinets. They would need a fresh coat of paint.
Ian realized there was no air conditioning in the house, but Angie reassured him they could install window units. Ian scanned the old windows with bubbles suspended in the glass, the flaking paint and cracks, the bare bulb light fixtures. The clattering floorboards Ian saw were all that separated the upstairs from the downstairs. To Ian, it was all a bit strange.
“It’s different.” Angie said at one point, her eyes seeming whimsical. “It’s peaceful.”
Yet Angie’s affirmations didn’t quell the unease worming inside Ian’s stomach. The place creaked, was full of dust and earthy smells that stirred his fear of the unknown. But as Ian stood on the back porch listening to cicadas, he faced the sun and looked past the barn at the woods across the pasture, and saw new opportunities for his imagination, and a chance at taking his new-found freedom even further.
“How much land is it?” Ian asked.
“Ten acres,” Angie responded.
Ian stood arms akimbo like Peter Pan surveying Never-Never Land, a prince on the cusp of greatness. His sinewy t-shirted arm reached out and arced slowly, “All of this we’ll get to conquer,” he thought to me. I heartily agreed.
“What about you, General? Do you want to live here?” Ian peeked through the bars of my crate and rubbed my nose.
“What did he say?” Asked Angie.
“He says he wants to go mouse hunting.”
Angie snickered. Ian opened my crate. “What are you doing?”
“He wants to go exploring. Can’t we go exploring? He’ll stay with me. Won’t you, General Regis?”
What is a cat supposed to say when offered the chance to roam ten acres unhindered? I mewed affirmatively, sitting straight to make myself seem as obedient as possible. Angie shrugged and waved us off. “Ten minutes.”
“Alright!” Ian shouted, before charging out the door. We ran across the yard, over tufts of tall grass. Ian opened the gate leading into the pasture. The field opened up before us. The sun was so hot I thought I never felt anything like it. Not in my wildest dreams could I imagine being able to see so far. And I sensed Ian had never felt so limitless.
He ran, and I followed him up a hill, then down again. In a clover patch by a barbed wire fence near the woods we sat in some shade, panting, and looked back where we’d come from. The house seemed small, so Ian tried to squeeze it between his fingers.
Ian laughed and smiled at me, his hair shining saffron, his green eyes sparkling and full of light, and we waited until we caught our breath. We looked around us, exhilarated to discover, as if for the first time, the dirt and lush greenery beneath our feet, the blue sky full of promise and perfect clouds without consequence floating above our heads, feeling completely happy together, the best of friends in the bright wide world.