I had met Brittany shortly after we moved to our new neighborhood two years ago. Our home search had taken over a year as I needed to clean up my credit before we could move up to the larger home we needed. The best deals were across the river in the newer part of town, but that meant we were leaving our daughters elementary school and all our neighborhood friends. My wife, Pamela, had hired a really hot realtor, Mrs. Leah, to help us with our search. She was a great realtor, and had a nice rack. D cups and very cute. She had the neatest little walk as she strutted about in tight blue jeans while wearing high heels. I loved driving around with her. After lots of false starts, we finally found our dream home, on a quiet street, located just between the local elementary and middle schools.
We completed the closing process fairly painlessly, and then began the process of getting the home ready for our family. The house was a Mediterranean two story on a local golf course that had been a foreclosure. As it had been in the foreclosure process for nearly two years, it needed work. A lot of work. All the appliances were missing. Several of the walls had fist sized holes punched in them. The carpet was disgusting. It needed a good scrubbing and then needed to be painted. I took two weeks vacation from work, talked my dad into driving down to help with some free labor, and we went to work; throwing out abandoned trash, ripping out the carpet, scrubbing the interior of the house, then started we started painting. All the bedrooms and closets, the family rooms, the kitchen and the hallways got a new coat of paint. The bathrooms all got new paint, as well as new faucets and hardware. The big home center came out and installed a new garage door.
By the end of the second week the new appliances had been delivered and installed, the new carpet was laid down, the utilities were on and we were ready to move in. I hired four of my students from the college to help us with the move. With a large rental truck, and one long Saturday, we got moved in during the middle of August.
As we met the neighbors on our street, we were always looking for potential sitters for our six year old daughter Kelly. After a couple of months we met Brittany, a skinny 16 year old sophomore who lived three blocks down the street. She was a lean, gangly teenager, very popular with everyone at the high school. She was on the cheerleader squad, and I was struck at just how cute she was.
Her mother had been quick to volunteer her as a sitter and we were soon using her on a regular basis. As a cheerleader, she was often busy, so we soon became adept at planning our weekly dates on Wed, Thurs or just whenever she was available. She was great with our daughter, and even when overseeing the occasional sleepover with Kelly's best friend. Soon she was more like a big sister to Kelly. She would stop by and take Kelly to watch cheerleader practice, volunteered to help with her Girl Scouts troop, and spent time teaching Kelly how to put on makeup.
Our families became better friends through the last two years. We would go to football games just to see Brittany cheering on the sideline. During her senior year, she was so busy that quiet often we would have to use our older neighbor Ruth instead, but Brittany always was very special to me.
The first few times she babysat Kelly, my wife would drive her home afterwards, but after about third time I drove the very short drive to her home, and after that, taking her home would always be my job. When it was cold I would drive her, but as the spring arrived, I would walk her home. Sometimes when the nights were cool I would find her leaning closely against me during the 10 minute walk. Her perfume was always lingering in my mind during the evenings after our walks.
I would usually text her to set up when she would baby sit and then eventually we became occasional texting buddies. Not regular, but every couple of weeks or so, I would check in with her to see how things were going in her life.
