Open Your Eyes

Our Highway Baby

10 months after the trip to the farm,
5 years before the accident.

Waking that morning we were finally moving out to the house on the land. We had broken ground in a celebration of our fellowships and that was a year ago. Sophie was now 21 months and loved going out to the land with her daddy to see how the house was coming along.

I woke to a cold nose pressed against mine and opened my eyes to see Sophie smiling at me. She was more excited to move then we were. I had her sleep in the bed with me last night because we had broken her cot down yesterday but we had also broken our bed down so it was just a mattress on the floor.

"Hey baby girl." I said to her lifting her into my arms and snuggling her.

"Where's dadda?"

"Dadda is at work."

"The new house?"

"Oh we are going to start packing the truck this morning when it arrives. We have everything ready to go in the truck." I tell her.

The truck had been by a few times this week and taken away a lot of the heavy furniture like the lounges, beds, dressers, tables, chairs and the boxes we had packed and didn't need. The only things left in the house were the boxes of clothes, kitchen utensils, some of Sophie's toys, the nursery furniture and the things that had lingered in our attic.

She smiles at me.

"Baby?" She asks looking at my tummy.

"No there is no baby in there sweetie." I tell her. "How about we get some breakfast and then we can be ready to go when the truck gets here."

She nodded her head with a huge smile. A nauseous feeling washed over me.

"Come mumma."

"I'll meet you downstairs. I tell her."

This feeling had come to me for the past 2 days. I just thought it was of stress because we were almost attending's Derek and I, we were parents and moving house so I just thought it was stress because we had been at the new house a lot preparing for the big move.

Sophie had disappeared downstairs and I sat there just waiting for the feeling to pass.

A few hours later we had the truck packed with everything and our house was now bare. Derek had come home and helped with packing the truck.

We stood in the hallway just reminiscing on all those memories we had had in the past 6 years. I turned to him and kissed him.

"Let's go home." I tell him.

He smiles at me. "Sophie."

Sophie toddles out with her teddy bear and runs to Derek. He picks her up and we walk out of our house one last time, locking the door.

We settled in well over the next week and everything had found a home but there was a lot of empty spaces which really annoyed me. I had complained to Derek about it a lot of the time and he said that there was space for more kids and for family when they came.

The Chief had given us a few days off work so we could settle into the house and we did straight away. Sophie had loved us taking her for a walk along the trail and down to the water every afternoon but today both of us didn't take her. Only I did. Derek had a later surgery and I was home just before 5. I was in the best mood and I couldn't wait until Derek got home because I had news to tell him.