This was where she had grown up. This explosion of handmade, homespun, aggressively crafted everything.
Somehow this was what she thought a home should look like.
Tom stood in the middle of the room, his jaw clenched.
She’d seen his parents’ house. But she stubbornly refused to follow their lead, no matter how many hints his mother gave her.
His parents had dignity. Discipline.
Whereas this house was suffocating. Everywhere he looked was another handmade thing, another craft project, another expression of that same relentless, unnecessary cheerfulness.
Tom climbed the stairs, each step creaking under his weight. The stairwell wall was a gallery of family photos in mismatched frames. Lauren at every age smiled out at him. Lauren missing teeth. Lauren in a homemade Halloween costume—was that supposed to be a fairy? Lauren graduating college.
In every photo, she was beaming. Happy and bright and painfully unselfconscious.
The guest room was clearly her old bedroom.
A corkboard hung above the small desk, layered with photos, pressed flowers, ribbons from school events. The walls were blue, sponge-painted with clouds. A basket overflowed with winter scarves and gloves. A few skeins of yarn peeked out between them. The top of the pile held a thick gray scarf, soft and uneven, flecked with green.
He reached out automatically, running a thumb along the yarn. It wasn’t store-bought; he could tell by the inconsistencies, the small missed stitches. Handmade.
He lifted it, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. It was ugly, imperfect.
Tom sat on the edge of the bed, the scarf still in his hands.
This was Lauren's normal.
He thought of his own childhood home. Everything neutral, coordinated, expensive.
Thatwas what a home should look like.
For some reason, Tom thought of his college sketches. Bold. Colorful. Ambitious.
His father had flipped through the portfolio once. Just once.
"Clients don't pay for ‘interesting,’” his father had said. "They pay for classic.”
Classic.
His student portfolio gone into the trash. "No need to preserve your learning curve," Richard had said.
Tom hadn’t argued. He had needed the salary, the stability, the proof to himself that he could provide for the woman he loved.
And so his father had taught him. Painstakingly, patiently. Until Tom could no longer tell which blueprints were his and which ones were his father’s.
His father had been right in the end. His college designs had been embarrassing. Just like this house was embarrassing.
He lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Someone had stuck glow-in-the-dark stars up there, and they were still there. Still keeping watch over Lauren's childhood bed.
“The man I married is ashamed of who I am.”
Her voice echoed in his head, quiet and certain and devastating.
Tom closed his eyes against the faint constellations above him. His hand found the scarf again, fingers tightening in the soft wool.
CHAPTER 14
Lauren
