Chapter Text
Amanda and Sam drive behind the moving truck that’s leading them to their new home. This was Amanda’s first time seeing the house, Sam hopes she likes it. It’s smaller than the last but it’s closer to town and has its own washer and dryer set up. Another big plus is it’s so close to her new school.
They pull up to the house, the moving truck in the driveway while they park on the side of the street. Sam steps out and stretches. He smiles and watches Amanda rush the “For Sale” sign and kick it down. She looks to him proudly, “I’ve got a problem with authority.”
“Nice form sweet pea.” Sam walks up next to her and leads her to the door. “Let’s go inside, just promise you don’t do that to the furniture. We don’t need to have to find a new coffee table from you kicking it in half. We’ll probably need to get more than enough windows to not need that on top of it.”
Amanda laughs. “Sure dad. We’ll see how long it lasts.” Sam unlocks the door and allows her to open the door and look around first. “Dad... “ She turns to him, “This is perfect. It’s going to be a good new start.” She turns back to the room and walks down the hallway and sees five doors along the length of the hallway. The first door is to a medium size bedroom, there is no furniture in there yet but the walls are a dark navy blue color with a dark wooden floor. “Hey dad, is this one going to be my room?”
He laughs, “You’re more than welcome to that room, I was guessing you’d like that one more than the soon to be office. That room is a little bit bigger. If you’d like we can paint it to any color.” He pushes open the door across the hall from the room she chose. It’s a slightly smaller room with tan walls, there is a full wall that is bookshelves and there looks to be room to hold 2 desks. There’s a window on the wall to the right that faces out to the front yard, it bathes the room in warm light.
Amanda smiles, “I’d love those bookshelves but that room would be too small for me. So… what does your room look like?” She looks around Sam. There are three doors at the end of the hallway left to explore. “Hmmm, is yours this one?” She runs around him and throws the door open. To her disappointment it was only the bathroom. It was a small grey bathroom; a larger shower on the farthest wall, the toilet next to it with a counter and sink on its other side.
She turns away from the bathroom and pushes open the door to Sam’s bedroom. It was a small room, about the size as Amanda’s, only a little oddly shaped. There would be room for his desk, dresser, bed and nightstand. And his closet would have more than enough room for his clothes to hang. The walls were a darker brown, the curtains were a golden color.
She smiles almost too sweetly, “Dad, I love the house. This is going to be great to live in, we should go out and explore the town before it gets too dark!” Sam sighs, “You just don’t want to start unpacking yet…” He rubs his forehead and looks at his watch. “We’ve got to get stuff out of the moving van, once we get that into the front room and the kitchen then we can go out. We can unpack later and get everything set up once we get back, but we should get the moving guys on their way before we go anywhere.”
Amanda groans, “But dad, that’s going to take forever! We’ve got so much stuff crammed into those 2 trucks!” she looks at him with puppy eyes. Sam just smiles, “Then let’s get to it. That stuff's not going to move itself.”
After a few hours they got everything into the front room and in the kitchen. The sofa and tables are covered in boxes and the floor is a maze from the other boxes scattered around.
“Are you sure we don’t want to get this all finished up? I’m worried if we leave it that it’ll never get finished…” Sam looks over at Amanda and she just smiles.
“Oh no! You said we could take a break afterwards! We can unpack some later!” She is halfway to the door, dodging around boxes as she says this.
Sam laughs and follows her more slowly. “Alright, then do we want to go to the park? I know I saw one with lots of dogs around. Or maybe explore town?”
Amanda perks up at the sound of dogs. “Dad, you mentioned dogs, do you even have to ask? There should still be some at the park! It’s still a few hours till sundown! Come on dad! By the way, thanks for moving us to a town where the dog to person ratio is very high. Now we don’t want to miss the dogs!” She runs over to their car and gets in.
Sam locks the door and jogs over to the car. “I only want what’s best for you. Now let’s go to see the puppers.” Sam gets into the car and drives them a few miles away to where the park is. There are still a few families running around; playing on the playground or in the field nearby playing with their dogs.
Sam gets out of the car and breathes deeply. “Ahhh, it’s so peaceful out here. We may have to come here more often once all the boxes are unpacked.”
Amanda groans, “Dad, don’t ruin a good thing by talking about the boxes. We’re here to enjoy the dogs, not deal with that labyrinth of boxes!”
They walk into the park and head more towards the fields. Sam and Amanda see an empty bench and go to sit down. But before Sam can sit he hears a voice sudden yell, “Heads up!”
He turns to look at where the voice came from and gets hit in the head by a frisbee. He hits the ground and grabs his head. “Uuugghhh, what was that?” He rubs his forehead and looks up at the dog that’s now holding the frisbee that hit him. “Hello puppy… weren’t you supposed to catch that?” He says quietly to the dog and pets its head.
“You definitely coulda caught that.” A tall man runs up, he’s in a hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and a fluffy red beard. “You know, frisbees are traditionally caught with your hands, not your face.”
Sam glares at him. “I’ll catch it with my teeth next time,” Sam says sarcastically as he stands up. “You caught me off guard this time, but never again. Never again.” He fully faces the stranger.
The stranger laughs and holds out his hand as a formal greeting. “Ha, I’m just messing with you. I’m Brian by the way.”
Sam shakes his hand, “I’m… Sam, and this is my daughter, Amanda.” He gestures next to him and realizes that she’s not there. He looks down and sees that she’s petting and playing with Brian’s corgi.
Brian laughs, “Oh good old Maxwell sure knows how to steal everyone's attention.”
Amanda smiles. “Hi, your dog is cool.” She rubs Maxwell’s tummy when he rolls over.
Brian grins brightly, “It’s nice to see another father and daughter out here on such a sunny day.” Brian gestures behind him to a girl sitting on a blanket behind him. She’s reading a book that is larger than her head. She looks up and walks over when she hears her father mentioning her. “This is my daughter Daisy. She’s reading the Brothers Karamazov. Her teacher says that she has the reading comprehension of a high schooler.”
Sam looks a little nervous, “So, how old is she…?”
Brian beams, “She’s ten. She’s a precocious little youngster.” He pats her on the back and looks at her proudly.
Amanda looks at her surprised. “Whoa!”
Sam looks a little upset, but determined. His daughter is precocious as well, he can’t just stand by and let Brian brag about his daughter without Sam being able to brag about Amanda as well.
Brian smiles and pushes Daisy before him. “Go on Daisy, tell them about yourself.”
She just looks a little bashful. “Um… I…” She looks nervously over at her dad.
Brian gives her a thumbs up. “That’s my girl!”
Sam looks slightly annoyed at Brian. “Amanda… go get in there...!” he pushes Amanda forward to brag about herself. So he hopes.
Amanda looks at Daisy confused and somewhat scared of what was going on between their dads. “Ok… ah… ok…”
Sam frowns at the lack of bragging from Amanda, “So Amanda here just recently won a local photography award.” Sam says while looking very proud of himself for that brag.
Brain smiles, “Wow, Congratulations!” He puts an arm over Daisy’s shoulder. “Daisy actually just won a state-wide poetry contest!”
Sam flinches and looks uncomfortable. “Ahhh… well…” He pulls out his phone and searches for a picture of Amanda to show off. He finds one from her tenth grade spelling bee. He holds out the phone for Brain to see it, “Look! This is Amanda winning her spelling bee in tenth grade!”
Brian smiles, “Congratulations Amanda, Daisy is preparing for her annual spelling bee right now! We’re hoping this will be her third win in a row!”
Sam’s smile drops.
“Daisy just started a weekly chess club at her elementary school computer lab. She’s the president too, of course!”
Amanda’s smile drops as well, “Oh… wow… my high school doesn’t even have a chess club… or a computer lab…”
Sam grabs out his wallet and searches through it a moment. “Found it!” He triumphantly pulls out the picture from his wallet. It was a picture that Amanda drew of a cornucopia from the first grade. He smiles proudly at it and looks over at Amanda.
She smiles, “Dad… you really kept that junk for all these years?” She walks over and hugs him tightly.
Brain smiles, “That’s such a beautiful display of father and daughter love. So wonderful. It’s been such a treat meeting you two! So are you two new to this neighborhood? Or just visiting?”
Sam nods, “We just moved into the cul-de-sac. We got everything unpacked from the moving vans and the car and decided it would be a good time to explore the rest of the area. This was our first stop.”
“You do? We live over in the cul-de-sac too! We live in the house right near the coffee shop. Ours is the little ranch style house on the corner. It’s a very nice neighborhood to live in. I think you’ll like it a lot.”
Sam looks down thinking about how much nicer Brian’s house is compared to theirs.
“Oh that one is such a pretty house! You’ve got a lovely garden going there!” Amanda says and lightly pokes her dad, knowing he was feeling upset about how much nicer his house was. She knows her dad wasn’t thinking about how they had just moved in.
“Thank you! Well, I don’t want to take up anymore of your time. Really nice meeting you! You’ll have to have you stop by at some point! Farewell Sam, and you as well Amanda!” Brian shakes Sam’s hand another time and walks away with Daisy and Maxwell while waving at them.
Sam and Amanda wave at them as they walk away. “So dad… do you want to go get coffee before we go unpack some boxes?” She looks at him with puppy eyes, not wanting to go back and unpack yet.
Sam laughs, “Fine, let’s go. So Amanda… did you think he was trying to one up us?” He asks this quietly to her once they’re farther away from where they had been talking with Brian and Daisy.
Amanda laughs. “Trying and succeeding dad. I can’t believe Daisy is ten. What was I even doing at her age?”
“Uh… I believe you had a little thing for horses.” He elbows her in the side jokingly.
Amanda laughs and winks. “Too bad that didn’t pan out. Could have majored in Comparative Horse Studies.”
“It’s not too late to minor in Horse Creative Writing.”
Amanda glares, “Ha, too close to the truth dad. Let us never again speak of the Fantastic Adventures of Sir Horsington the Brave.”
We laugh together and walk back to the car to drive over to the coffee shop.