Craig and I

Chapter Two

I thought the remainder of the trip would only take about two hours but it ended up taking us another six hours due to Amanda being extremely hungry all the time and me needing to go to the bathroom every other twenty minutes. But finally after three and a half days of traveling we finally made it to Portsmouth, Montana. This was my hometown where I grew up and I went to collage not far away from here. Our new house was located not too far away from my childhood home so if I ever wanted to relive some memories it was only a ten minute walk away.
"This is our new home sweetie. Do you like it?" I said hoping she would like our new home.
"Do I like it? I LOVE IT! We have two huge balcony's and the house is so large it's like we're living in a mansion" Amanda said with the happiest tone in her voice I've ever heard.
"I'm glad you like the new home, but it's now time to unpack and get all the boxes into the new home"
"How many boxes are there?" Amanda asked in a high pitched voice.
"94"
Amanda sighed.
"Oh well we better start unpacking now , we'll be done by six o'clock.

Amanda exits the truck and runs to the front of the two story white house with a balcony above the front brown porch with a dark brown door with a small window at the top of the door.
"AMANDA!" I yelled.
Amanda turned around quickly with her hand still on the door knob"
"Fun fact for you: An empty house is locked, so you need a key to open it" I screamed as I laughed.
I exited the truck and as I got closer to Amanda I threw the keys to her and she caught the keys.
"I guess those basketball games really came in handy" I screamed
Amanda smiled.
She struggles to open the door but when I finally get to the door I open it for her and she immediately runs upstairs.
"IM GONNA CALL MA ROOM!"
I start to wander around the big house, my first Interest was the kitchen because I love to cook and bake which I do three or more hours a day.
"Yo Dad" Amanda yelled from the top of he stairs.
"Yeah?" I asked.
Shouldn't we start to move the boxes? I mean you've been sitting down for quite a while and ur huge muscles are looking like they are about to deflate. Make them their original muscular self so you can pick up some guys"
"Amanda we've had this talk before I'm not dating again"
"Cmon, I want you to date, I want someone else in my life. No offense to you I love you more than anyone else in the world but I want to see you happy and I want you to be happy with someone else when I'm not around"
"Sweetie I'm thankful you think that way...let's make a deal. After we are done unpacking we can go around town and see what happens okay?"
"Okay Dad... NOW LETS GET UNPACKING!"

Amanda suddenly had a huge burst of energy erupt from her and she ran down the stairs and jumped of the last two steps. She ran out the front door and ran to the truck. I quickly ran after her and when I finally made it back to her she couldn't open the slide up door of the truck.
"You know of this door didn't have a lock on it it would've opened on the road and all of our boxes would've flown all across the highway. So next time think a little" I said whilst opening the back door of the truck.
"That's my dad everyone" she said while smiling at me.
I smiled back.
"Okay so we have 94 boxes to move in.... ten hours. Are you ready?" I asked while taking off my black thrasher hoodie.
"I'm as ready as I'll ever be" Amanda said while stretching her arms and legs.

I lifted two boxes at a time while Amanda only lifted one at a time.
"Amanda you take your boxes up to your room"
"Okay Dad sure"
"Did you chose the biggest room?" I asked whilst holding two boxes stacked on top of each other.
"No I chose the medium sized with the bathroom next to the stairs" Amanda said while she was searching for the boxes that had  "Amanda's stuff"  written on it with a red sharpie.

Two hours pass and at this point I'm sweating. I see someone coming out of my neighbors house which I expect to be my neighbor. He's wearing a pink T-shirt and tiny blue scarf around his neck. He's the first blonde I've seen today and the first person to give me "welcome to the neighborhood" cookies.
"Hello there, welcome to the neighborhood. My name is Joseph.
"Hello, Thank you very much. My name is Darcy. I just moved into this house with my daughter Amanda"
"Yeah you both seem lovely. It's pretty hot for a Montana summer isn't it" Joseph asked trying to start conversation.
"Yeah not like when I was growing up here"
"Oh so you've lived here before?" Joseph asked In a high pitch voice.
"Yeah I lived here until I was twenty then I moved to Mississippi with my ex-husband and got a child"
"Oh you adopted!"
"Um no we wanted a surrogate so my sister volunteered to be our surrogate"
"Wait....your daughter is lighted skinned" Joseph said confused.
"Yeah my mother is from Kinshasa and my father is Swedish. My sister got my mother's skin tone and I got my fathers skin tone"
"Oh interesting. Me and my wife have three children. My oldest son Jerry he's fourteen, my oldest daughter Angie is twelve and my youngest, Tory is only eight months"
"Well glad to hear you have a nice family and kids"
"You too" Joseph said while smiling profusely.
"DAD CAN YOU COME IN AND HELP ME!?" Amanda screamed from the entrance door.
"YEAH ILL BE RIGHT THERE!"
"I'm so sorry but I have to go and help my daughter real quick" I said to Joseph while slowly backing away.
"No problem I can't keep you occupied. Talk to you later" he said while smiling with his eyes closed.
"Talk to you later" I screamed as I ran away from him to my house.
As I enter the house I see Amanda holding a nail in the wall and a hammer in her other hand.
"Can you hold the nail while I hammer it into the wall?"
"Sure"
As I was holding the nail in the wall Amanda put the hammer down and took the nail out the wall.
"What are you doing" I asked.
"Dad...I saw your signal when you were talking to that guy" she said with her arms crossed
"What signal?" I asked confused.
"Whenever you are talking to someone new you start talking about your past life with dad and how you got me"
"Well true. Thanks little kiddo. Well there's not that many boxes left. Let's get the boxes that are left and take a little break"
" Okay sure think dad...Love you"
"Love you more"