The Kilmartin House
an excerpt

Chapter 1

Joan slid the big metal back door down, the latch securing with a satisfying click that sounded final coming from the empty moving truck. The last box, the one with the last of the items for the hope chest, was in Larson’s arms. When the baby blankets and her grandmother’s quilts joined the marriage and birth certificates and her child’s kindergarten drawings in Joan’s new master bedroom, the move would be complete.
“I’ll be in in a second; you go ahead,” she called to Larson as he held the door from the wraparound porch. Joan Hochstadder stood in the lawn taking in what she still could not believe was theirs. The two story Victorian house might have needed a fresh coat of white paint and some detail work inside and out, but for what they paid, they should be living in a ranch in a questionable part of town. Instead they had three sprawling acres where Joan had already planned a garden and several flower beds. And from the second she’d seen it, she knew she had to have it. It was perfect: right outside of town and the perfect size for her growing family. Joanna could even have a swing set and sandbox like the one she loved at the park down the street from their old apartment.
Larson was apprehensive at first, seeing only the work that needed to be done and not the potential of the place afterwards. She could picture the colors in the house already as if she’d seen them before a hundred times. The great room was wine and the dining room was an aged honey color. She knew what the kitchen downstairs and two bedrooms upstairs would look like. She just knew. He wasn’t so sure of her choices, but she knew he’d change his mind when she got them just right. Despite his reservations, he couldn’t disagree with her relentless argument that it was bigger and nicer than where they were living, and with his business growing like it was, they could finally afford a real home to call their own. It had been weeks of shouting matches complete with tears and pleading, but he’d finally agreed that 1023 Kilmartin Road. would be their new home.
Now that they were finally there she knew their rocky patch was over. She sighed and smiled as she started heading in to the house but stopped as she noticed a little face looking out of the windows of her daughter’s room. She waved at Joanna, but Jo just backed away from the window. “I’m sure she’s just getting used to it all,” she said to herself as she pulled the creaking screen door open and opened the chipped front door, noting them on her mental list of things that needed doing in the first few weeks.
All of their furniture was grouped inside the main hall waiting to be designated to a room. Before that could happen, the stacks of boxes would have to be moved off of them and either unpacked or put into storage. Joanna was sitting on a faded pink ottoman looking out one of the large, ground floor windows. “Mommy, I’m cold,” she said, hugging her arms close and pouting out her bottom lip.
“Oh, honey, why don’t you run upstairs and get your new sweater, the one with the leaves?” Then Joan remembered it was packed in a box in Joanna’s closet. “Come with me. We’ll go unpack it for you.”
Joanna shook her head and looked up the stairs.
“Alright, stay put and I’ll go get it, kiddo.” She worried briefly that getting used to a big house would be more of a challenge for her four year old daughter than she thought. She started up the rich looking wooden staircase with the ornate handrail, watching the branches of a tree through the window at the top of the stairs. The view from the top was all verdant trees and bright church steeples in the distance and gently swaying cornfields in front of that. She frowned at the clouds gathering on the other side of nearby Worthington, anxious about the Iowa thunderstorms she’d been accustomed to all her life but glad she finally had a basement to retreat to if the need arose.
Joanna’s room was at the end of the hall across from the small yellow bathroom that didn’t seem original to the house. As she opened the door to her daughter’s room she said, “I thought you were going to stay put.” She turned around but there was no one in the hallway. She could have sworn she’d heard Joanna come down the hallway behind her. Apparently Joanna wasn’t the only one who would have to get used to the sights and sounds of a new house.