When the time is right

On Friday afternoon, Aisling and I drove Meelyn over to Carmel to Lora's 16th birthday party (it rained like the holy angels were pouring water out of buckets, but fun indoor games were played and enjoyed) and on our way down Rangeline Road, we saw a For Rent sign with an arrow pointed down what looked like a quiet little side street. Aisling and I decided to investigate further once we'd dropped Mee off.

The street that looked like a quiet little street turned out to be a quiet little street. It meandered down a small hill and at the bottom, we found the sweetest little baby of a house sitting there, empty. I fell in love at first sight.

The house was sitting in a lovely wide front yard, shaded by a big tree, well back from the road. It featured a nice sized asphalt driveway that led to a roomy one-car garage. The house itself was a ranch-style construction, looking to have been built maybe in the 1940s or early 1950s. It was connected to the garage by a generously proportioned mudroom. The windows were plentiful, nice and low, and the exterior was sheathed in two different types of Bedford stone: the top half was the gorgeous rusty taupe kind that I like so much (and that also can be seen in St. Ambrose church in Anderson) and the bottom half was the more widely seen grey taupe.

Aisling and I peered into the mudroom and saw new flooring installed, plus the washer/dryer hookups and plenty of room for a drying rack, a folding table, the dogs' crates and a box of boots. A door led from the driveway into the mudroom and from there into the kitchen; another door led out back to the yard.

We made our way around the house, peering in whatever windows offered us a view. New carpets everywhere; front part of the house living/dining/kitchen; back part, three bedrooms and a roomy bath. We went through the gate into the back yard (with Aisling tugging at me and whispering, "Are we trespassing, Mommy? Will the cops come and haul us away?" I don't know where the child thinks we live...) and saw a huge slope of grass with two big trees. A large deck was built onto the back of the house, with a sliding patio door leading outward.

The yard was fenced, large enough for a volleyball net and running dogs and a bunch of teenagers roasting hotdogs and marshmallows. Squinting into the kitchen, our hands cupped around our eyes, we saw painted 1940s metal cabinets with retro drawer and cabinet pulls and a new white stove with a digital readout, which I thought was an amusing combination.

It felt like a happy house, like people who loved it and each other had lived there.

We left and came back later with my husband and later still with Meelyn. Every time I looked at it, the house made my heart give an adoring *thump!*. It's a lot smaller than the house we live in now, but that's really not the issue because we can't move there anyway. The time is not right, especially considering the news that our landlord, who is the world's kindest man, says that he doesn't want to lose us and has just dropped our rent $50 a month. You don't walk out on that kind of decency in a landlord!

No, the time isn't right. But someday, the time will be right. We're thinking maybe eighteen months or so. And that beautiful, humble little house, quietly sitting there in Carmel with neighborhoods full of gorgeous, enormous houses fore and aft, gave me some kind of sparkling, inward hope that the right house will be there when we need it.