The Haunted

He’d been thinking along the same lines, though he’d hesitated to bring it up. Claire was sentimental, and not only was this the house they’d picked out together when they’d moved to Jardine, but both Megan and James had spent their entire lives in this place. There were a lot of memories here. The neighborhood was getting bad, however, and despite the terrible economy, their family was actually in pretty good financial shape right now. He and Claire were both employed, their house was worth much more than when they’d bought it fifteen years ago, and if they were ever going to move, this was probably the time to do it. There were bargains to be had, and they were in the fortunate position of being able to take advantage of that.

“I think we could do it if we wanted to,” Julian said.

“No!” Megan shouted, overhearing the discussion. “I don’t want to move!”

“I do,” James said.

Julian looked over at his son, and their eyes met. A wave of sympathy washed over him. The past few years had been hard on the boy. Due to budget cuts, school boundary lines had been changed, and at the start of fifth grade, James had been plopped down in a new school, where he didn’t know anyone and where he hadn’t really made any friends. The year before, his two best buddies, Omar and Logan, had moved: Omar to Phoenix, where his dad had gotten a job, and Logan to Santa Fe, to live with his grandmother when his dad had lost his job. His other friend, Robbie, was still around, but Robbie was enrolled in a series of camps this summer because both of his parents worked and he needed someone to watch him during the day. So, since school let out, James had been spending most of his time alone, indoors, on the computer or in front of the television.

Julian could relate to his son’s situation. He was out of his element as well. He’d grown up in California, in a large metropolitan area, and he’d moved here only because this was where Claire wanted to live. She was from Jardine, and since her parents were getting older, her sister lived here and many of her childhood friends had remained behind to work or get married or both, she’d been longing to return for as long as they’d known each other. As a Web designer, he could work anywhere, and after what had happened had … happened, after he’d quit his job at Automated Interface and gone freelance, after she’d decided to leave the Los Angeles law firm where she worked in order to set up her own private practice, he’d finally agreed to move to New Mexico with her. It meant downsizing their lifestyle, but they were both still young, and if they weren’t willing to take a chance now, when would they be?

Unfortunately, Jardine didn’t offer quite the bucolic rural experience he’d expected. He’d pictured himself waking up to the sound of birdsong and walking downtown with his laptop to sip flavored coffee at a cute café next to an art gallery on a tree-lined street. But the city was bigger than he’d thought it would be and resembled one of the lesser Los Angeles suburbs more than the cinematic country burg he’d imagined.

He wasn’t unhappy, though, and he realized that, with two kids, their family would probably have exactly the same sort of lifestyle no matter where they lived.

“I like it here,” Megan whined. “I don’t want to live somewhere else.”

“We’re not moving,” Claire reassured her daughter. “We’re just talking.”

But it was more than just talk, and that night in bed when Julian brought it up again, Claire admitted that she’d actually gone online the other day to look up available local properties. “I wasn’t really looking,” she said. “It was more like … browsing. I was just checking to see what was out there. No real reason. But …” She let the thought trail off.

Julian saw in his mind those teenagers flipping him off, thought about James spending his summer hiding in the house. “Maybe we should start looking,” he said.

She smiled, kissed him. “Maybe we should.”

Two

They’d narrowed the choices down to three, and though Claire was leaning toward a foreclosed McMansion that was part of the new DesertView development on the south end of the city, Julian thought they should be more prudent. Just because they were in good financial shape at the moment, it didn’t mean they always would be. Claire’s office had seen a slight downturn in clients recently, and the Web design business was notoriously fickle. If they ended up overextended, someone might be buying their foreclosed home in a year or two.