Our First Home

Julian and I began dating in March of 2019. We first met online and soon became infatuated with each other. We talked all day, everyday for a month before we decided to meet in person. We had both just gotten out of bad long-term relationships and wanted to take our time with the next person.  As soon as our eyes met, I had stars in my eyes. He was tall, broad-shouldered and looked like a blonde superman. 

I thought I had won the jackpot because this man was not only intellectual and funny, but also incredibly gorgeous. It wasn’t long after we met that things started to get pretty serious and soon we moved into his one bedroom apartment.

After 2 years of dating, Julian and I wanted to take the next step in our relationship and buy a house. It was both of our first time buying a house and so we wanted to take our time. 

Everyday after work we would scour the internet looking for a medium sized house, in a good neighborhood, with enough of a yard for our dog, Cap, to run around and play in. Cap is a 100 pound Siberian Husky and so we wanted to be sure his legs got enough of a stretch. 

When we had finally found our dream home with an acre of land– we were immediately sold. It was a Charlie Brown house with brown shutters and brown walls with a bright red door, just like my parents. It had the most nostalgic feel. 

After we scanned all the pictures, we looked at the price and was astonished that this house was marked within our price range. Ecstatic, we immediately called up our realtor and wanted a tour. 

When we arrived, the house did not disappoint. The lawn was well manicured and there was greenery planted everywhere. 

Once we stepped inside, we were amazed. The inside was gorgeous with hardwood floors, beige colored walls, a spacious living room, medium sized dining room, a breakfast counter in the kitchen, a penthouse bathroom, and 2 bedrooms. 

Once we saw it, we were in love with how charming and quaint the home was. We immediately put in an offer. The realtor was so surprised at how soon we wanted to go all in, but we knew in our hearts that this was our forever home. 

After a couple of long months of waiting and a ton of paperwork– the house was ours. We were ready to take this amazing first chapter together and everything was falling into place. 

Moving was arduous, but it was also super rewarding to know that we bought this house with our hard earned money. 

On the day of the move, it was pouring rain and the movers were tracking mud everywhere. Normally I would have been grossed out but I was so anxious to get unpacking in my new home that I didn’t care too much.

A couple of months after settling in, Julian got a new job as a scientist for a local chemical plant, and I got a job working remotely for a writing agency. This worked out perfectly because I was also able to take care of the house a little and be home to let Cap out every now and then.

Our situation seemed perfect and life was going so seamlessly that it seemed almost too good to be true. I was able to set up my own working station and it felt rewarding. 

One morning when Julian was at work, I was in my adorably pink home office when I heard a fumble in the attic as if a couple of raccoons had made their way up there and were having a brawl. Our town was populated with small animals so I figured that that was probably it. 

I shook it off and went back to work, working on my next how-to article. 

By lunchtime, I was famished and went downstairs to make a grilled cheese sandwich. It was gooeying with cheddar cheese and was just what my tummy needed to get me through the day. I only got a 15 minute break and so I immediately made it, ate it and went back to the grind. 

I walked back up the hardwood stairs to my office and sat down on my blue chair in front of my computer. It was time to get back into work mode and take care of the remaining articles I had to write. I was finishing up the final details of the Vertigo project when I heard someone knocking at the door, loudly 3 times in a row. KNOCK… KNOCK…. KNOCK….

Cap was barking his head off and it made me feel uneasy. I grabbed a pencil from my studio and cautiously went downstairs as he kept growling. I could see that Cap’s hackles were up and got concerned.

I crept down each step as if someone was around the corner. When I saw no one was there, my fear faded but I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding. I thought that maybe they were just nearby or at the door. Pencil in hand, I approached the door.  No one was there and I was in the clear. 

I felt a tiny bit of relief that he wasn’t barking at any human approaching the house, but I still had the fear that something bad was around the corner. 

Freaked out, I called Julian at work, and thank god he answered the phone right away because I needed the access code to check the cameras. 

When he answered, I was frantic and he had to calm me down.  I told him what had happened and he offered to check the cameras real quick since he had the app downloaded on his phone and had some down time at work.

I waited for him to check the cameras, and it felt like 10 minutes, even though it was only a couple minutes. I just kept thinking to myself, “I knew what I heard and my animals heard it too. There had to be something else going on.” I hoped and prayed that he wouldn’t find anything and that it was just a coincidence. 

When Julian came back on the phone, he said he didn’t see anything there and that maybe it was just a squirrel, but I knew what I had heard. It sounded unmistakingly like a human knocking.

Since there was no one there, we had both thought it would be foolish to call the cops and assumed that maybe it was a one off incident of some neighborhood prankster who appeared outside of the range of our cameras. 

He stayed on the phone for about 20 minutes afterwards to make sure I was ok before heading back to work. He was really worried about me and wanted to leave early to come home but I told him I’d be ok until he got home in a couple of hours. We were completely relieved that no human had been there, but then what could explain the knocking? 

Both of us were baffled, but Julian is a scientist and so he was determined that it had to be a prankster or the house creaking. I knew that this wasn’t just the creaking of an old house and that there had to be some other explanation for what was going on, but I didn’t want to argue and so I let it go.

But as the months went on, I kept seeing things out of order in the house. Things were rarely where we remembered putting them. Julian and I are both OCD and so we would constantly bicker about who moved the flier for our block party or moved the vegetable oil out of “its home,” which was always in the microwave cart. 

We finally reached the conclusion that if something was misplaced, we would just put it away for whomever left it out. Coming to this conclusion meant a peace of mind for both of us and meant one less thing to worry about. 

But one Autumn day while we were in the living room watching TV, on the couch, we noticed that the flour had fallen off of the counter in the kitchen. We were alone in the house and Cap was sleeping in between us so we had no explanation as to how it could have fallen. 

Befuddled, we headed to bed. We were getting tired of the random occurrences and hoped things would be better in the morning until we heard the phantom knocking again. This time Julian had heard it for himself. And this time, the knocking sounded as if it was coming from the wall behind our bed. You could hear the echo of the knock on the drywall pounding over and over again. KNOCK…KNOCK…KNOCK…

This time, there was no mistaking what we had heard and both of us were extremely frightened. Julian jolted out of bed, put on his striped pajama pants, shirt, and rushed over to the closet to grab our heavy duty, black duffel bags. He began to hurriedly pack enough clothes for a couple of weeks.

I kept shouting over and over again, “Where are we going? What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?” “We’ll get out of here for a couple of weeks until we can secure an apartment for us,” he said. I felt a wave of relief to know that he had a plan and so I helped him finish packing. 

Once we were done, we grabbed Cap and got in the shiny blue sedan and that was that. With our first home in the rearview mirror, I didn’t know how we were going to manage, but with Julian and Cap by my side, I knew we’d be ok.