Chapter Twelve – Moving Out
Monday, October 1st, 1961
Surprisingly, after that, everything really happened just as Marion said it would. Marion searched for a new place for us for weeks after we talked about it. I was actually starting to get quite nervous about leaving this house. I had lived here for all of my life and I couldn't imagine what it might be like to leave it. I mentioned this to Marion but she kept telling me the same thing. "It's for the best, Norman," she reassured me all the time. "Don't worry, everything is going to be better from now on, you just wait and see."
I knew she was right, but still, I couldn't help myself being nervous. I knew that even though this place was so full of bad memories, I knew I would still miss it. When you spend your whole life in one place, you get used to living there and nowhere else. I didn't know what life would be like anywhere else. Maybe it would even be a worse life. But what did I know anyway? I would just have to stop worrying and wait and see what kind of life was waiting for me in the outside world. I hadn't had contact with the outside world for so long, and it was just waiting to be discovered. That made me feel a bit more confident.
Anyway, about a month after Marion mentioned this to me, we were ready to move out of the house, and go to a place that was not so deserted and lonely, and start a new life.
Marion and I had found a place in town. All right, so it was not a very large place, but still, it would do for now. Marion seemed excited about moving out of here, but still I couldn't help being nervous. I know I was being paranoid, but I couldn't help it. At first I tried to think about all the good things about it, but then my mind immediately went back to the bad things. I talked to Marion a lot about it. We even almost argued about it a lot of times. "This is all going to work out, Norman," she kept telling me. "You'll see. Don't you trust me?"
"Of course I trust you," I'd tell her. "I'm just not sure any more. I mean what if –"
"Stop what-iffing," she snapped at me. "If I didn't think this was going to be good for us then I wouldn't be doing it, would I? Just relax. Everything's going to be fine from now on."
I hoped she was right. I really, really hoped she was right. But I still had doubts. In fact I almost changed my mind about this whole thing once or twice. One of the bad things about me is that sometimes I always change my mind right at the last minute. But I knew I couldn't change my mind about this. Marion really wanted to do this, and she sounded so certain that this would be good for me that it was difficult not to believe her. There was no way I could back out of this now. I just had to wait and see if the grass would be greener on the other side.
