In the last dream I had before the alarm woke me, I had been walking under the tall trees in our yard, observing the plants and wildlife. Suddenly, I realized I was trespassing. This land had new owners.

Our recent move from Alabama to Indiana unfolded gradually—then quickly. The decision with Sergey to lay the groundwork for moving closer to my sister, brother-in-law, and nephew. The year of applying for jobs and traveling up to Indianapolis repeatedly for interviews. The acquisition of the house next door to my sister’s family that fortuitously came on the market. The interview that finally yielded an offer. The wrapping up of my work at Auburn University and bidding farewell to my lovely teammates there. The goodbyes to our Bahá’í friends in Auburn, Montgomery, and Columbus. The race, by Sergey, to earn his private pilot license before we left (he did!). The preparation of our Alabama house for sale. The packing, which my mother gallantly spearheaded. The relocation six hundred miles north. The unpacking and the puzzling out of how to fit our possessions into our significantly smaller new house. The start of my new job at Indiana University.

I suppose I should be an expert at moving—I’ve been relatively itinerant for my entire adulthood, moving from place to place for education and jobs. But this move was different: my first not driven by career, my first time returning to live in the Midwest since I left Wisconsin fifteen years ago, and my first time needing to sell a home.

In our final week in Alabama, I walked over to the front porch. Something violating the ordinary arrangement of plants and pine straw caught my eye: what was that furry brown thing? It turned out to be a fawn, hidden beneath the fronds of ferns I had planted. 

The gift of late summer fawns had delighted us every year in Auburn. A deer mother leaves her fawn in a quiet spot for the entire day while she goes off to forage, and our treed, unfenced, dogless yard provided plenty such spots. At night, the doe returns, moving her fawn to a new spot for the next day. So, we had this one day to enjoy this paradigmatic fawn: huge black eyes, dappled coat, and gangly legs.

Yet, even this fawn could not compare with our nephew, also new, long-lashed, and big-eyed—now our next-door neighbor.