Right Here in My Arms

I climbed out of the car as my father paid the cab driver. I walked to the back of the car and pulled out the luggage bags from the trunk. I handed my father his and then closed the trunk of the car before following him into the little house. It was a small peach colored house with white doors and white window frames. There was a wooden deck at the entrance of the house where two lawn chairs sat. On the left of the house was a small garage, probably enough to fit one car inside and a few yard supplies and on the right side of the house there was another little building, not exactly sure of what it was. There were a bunch of shrubs and bushes that were on both sides of the desk underneath the windows. It was cute little place, but not exactly what I used to. I followed my father into the house and we both stopped to look around.

“Dad,”

“Mhm?”

“There’s no furniture,”

My father rubbed the back of his neck with his palm and sighed, “This could cause a slight dilemma.”

There was no furniture in the house other than the boxes that had been shipped out that contain clothes, kitchen supplies that my mother decided to spare for us, blankets and pillows, and a few other things. I sighed in frustration and pushed my hair back. The house was all hardwood floors except for where the kitchen was, which had an ugly black and white tiled floors and tan counter tops. Clearly whoever designed this place didn’t have the best taste in décor. We had only been in this house for five seconds and there was already a problem.

“Alright, alright. Rowan, it’s okay. We’ll get this all figured out,” he mentioned, walking over to me and rubbing my back.

I pursed my lips and nodded. I tried to look on the positive side of this situation and I smiled, “Alright... It’s a house with a roof and it isn’t going to collapse on me in the middle of the night. Things are a-okay.”

My father chuckled and nodded, “Exactly! Way to be, honey.”

I nodded and smiled at him, “I’m gonna go explore for a little bit. I’ll see you in a few.” I picked up my luggage and went across the room where there was a door. I peeked into the room before I quickly shut the door and shook my head. “Nope! That is the bathroom,” I stated. I giggled as my father laughed at me and opened up the door. It was a small room, decent, but small. I knew I’d be able to fit the things that I’d need considering I don’t typically need a lot of things. I’m typically a simple girl who doesn’t need or require much other than the essentials, obviously. I walked into the room and set my bag in the corner, taking another glance around the room. I opened the shades and cracked the window open to let some fresh air into the room considering the air felt a little stale. I coughed as a bunch of dust flew up from the window sill and into my face. I waved my hand around to get the dust out of my face and took a deep clean breath of Finland... I didn’t really like the weather or the air in Finland. It was really cold and the air felt thick, which I was somewhat used to since the air in California was thick as well, but it was a thick and humid. This place was just cold and wet and I knew that I’d that I grow accustom to it eventually.

I shrugged and walked out of my room in search of my father. I searched around the area that I assumed we’d make a living room when we’d buy furniture and looked across the room where the kitchen was. I shook my head at the poor taste in matching and turned towards the front door. I walked out onto the deck and closed the door behind me. I sighed and crossed my arms over my chest and closing my eyes, feeling the slight warmth from the sun as the rays broke through the thick dark clouds. Even if it was just a little bit of sun, it still felt good. I figured that here in Finland the sun didn’t shine much, but I could’ve guessed wrong.

“Hey Rowan,”

I looked over and smiled as my father waved me over. I stepped off of the desk and walked over to him, “Hey.”

“Come check this out,” he said, leading the way over to the garage. We walked into the garage and over to an old looking chest. He opened the chest and revealed a bunch of CD’s and record cases.

I smiled as I looked down inside the chest at all the music.

“I thought you might enjoy this. I don’t know how much of all this works or if anything is good, but if so you can have ever you find that you like,” my father mentioned, “I mean, we’re obviously going to have to get you some sort of music player so you can listen to some of it.”

I shook my head and knelt down, reaching into the dusty chest box, “Jeez. Some of the stuff doesn’t look like it’s been touched in years.”

He chuckled, “The house as well.”

I nodded; remembering that a plume of dust had exploded from the windowsill went she went to open her window. “Yeah, seems as if we going to have to clean it before we get furniture,” I mentioned, glancing up at him.

“Well, we can start cleaning tomorrow if there’s any rags and such in the boxes in the house,” he shrugged before standing up and dusting himself off, “I think we’ll settle in nicely once we get the chance to.”

I set the CD in the chest and sat on the floor and looked up at my dad, “Yeah, when we get the chance.”

“Well, I have money to buy furniture, so we will go shopping for that and food, so once we get that done we can settle in nicely,” he placed his hands on his hips and looked around the dim garage.

I nodded, mainly to myself, but also to what he had said.

“C’mon, Ro. Let’s go inside and look for some place to eat,” he spoke, holding his hand down towards me.

I grabbed his hand and pulled myself to my feet and followed him into the house where we found a phonebook and looked for a restaurant.