“I do, I just—you made the offer without discussing it with me. This is my home, my money, too.”
“Well, technically, babe, I’m the one making enough for a down payment.”
I drew back. “So I don’t get a say?”
“Of course you do, but we already discussed it,” he said. “You said you wanted it but you were concerned we couldn’t afford it. So I made it happen. Once I got the information I needed from the guys, I knew we were good to go.”
“I know you’re excited—I am, too,” I said. “But would it have killed you to wait one night so we could go over this together?”
“And give you another opportunity to back out? No way. This is happening. It’s done.”
Ah. So it wasn’t entirelyniceandspontaneous. “I have every right to back out,” I said. “When you make decisions without me, it makes me feel like you don’t respect my opinion.”
“I believe your opinion was ‘yes, Bill, I want the house. Buy me this house.’ Ibelieveit took a good eight or nine houses for you to decide that.”
I pursed my lips. “Idowant the house.”
“So what’s the problem?”
The problem?I repeated to myself.The problem is that I almost had sex with someone else this afternoon. The problem is that I’m not sure of anything anymore.The problem is that I don’t know how to make a home with you.
I shook the vicious thoughts from my head. How could I think that about this man who’d been nothing but good to me since the day we’d met? Of course I knew how to make a home with him. It would happen day by day—one thing at a time—we would build and build and build . . .
“Jesus, Olivia. I don’t know,” he said with exasperation, running his hand over his face. “I can’t keep up with your back and forth. But you’ll just have to trust that I’m making the right decision for both of us. The offer is made, and when they accept, that’s it.”
No more options. Buying this house meant no more thoughts of a different life. It meant I’d get everything I wanted—a foundation under my feet that would hold steady through every passing storm. Who would give that up to wander into the unknown, to put herself at the mercy of nature? I nodded and took a deep breath. “Yes,” I agreed. “Yes, that sounds right. And good and . . . yes.”
“I have work to do,” Bill said, disappointment threading his tone. He gestured at the champagne. “Help yourself.”
“Bill,” I said and sighed, but he disappeared into the living room. I leaned over the kitchen counter and put my head in my hands. Wasn’t it enough that I’d betrayed him? Been vile to him for months? Was I nowtryingto make him unhappy?
I straightened my shoulders. I’d have to work harder at this marriage, or I was going to drive an even bigger wedge between us. This step was important to him, and the house was a place where I could finally picture myself. It would change our lives for the better.
I found Bill at his desk, hunched over a stack of papers. I rested my hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry,” I said when he looked up. “I really am excited about the offer, I just wish I’d made the decision with you. But I know this means a lot to you, and it does to me, too.”
“It’s the right decision,” he said, almost pleading with me. “We have to move forward, Liv. I can’t stay in this place any longer.”
I nodded.Move forward. Leave this place behind. Whatever is holding me back, I have to give it up.
“Just imagine it. Please.”
“Imagine what?” I asked.
“We’llfinallyhave a place of our own. Who knows? We might have this house forever. Grow old together there. Down the line, we’ll raise our children there—at that point, hopefully I’ll be partner at the firm, and I’ll be more flexible. I’ll come home, you’ll be cooking with the kids or picking them up from basketball or ballet practice. We’ll have family dinners, a Christmas tree by the fire, birthday parties in the backyard. One day, we’ll pass the house down to our children, and them to their children. It’s the beginning of our future.”
I took a small step backward, thrown by the idyllic smile on his face. He was so confident in what he was saying, as though he’d already glimpsed into the future. As if, in his mind, it were the past, it had already happened. He’d seen me there, baking pies in a ruffle-trimmed, red and white apron. In his fantasy,Iwanted those things, too.
But didn’t I? I wanted a place to call my own, somewhere that was mine, where I felt safe enough to let go of the past. To know that I’d made a life that was stronger and more unshakable than my parents had. To stop worrying about how things could disappear or break or end without warning. What Bill had described sounded like a place to be where I was. In the present. It sounded like a home—a warm, loving home with a steadfast husband and not only a child, but children.Plural.
“All right,” Bill said, and I lifted my eyes back to his. He made a show of getting out of his chair. “One glass of champagne to celebrate, but then I really do need to get back to work.”
* * *
After Bill had gone to bed, I stayed up at the kitchen table, staring into the abyss. I envisioned over and over again the life he had described. Someone else’s life. Dread surfaced in the form of chills over my skin. I had promised those things to Bill in front of everyone we loved years ago. I hadn’t known for sure if I’d wanted them, but I had agreed to them with two words:I do.
What scared me most was that I might give him those things because I was supposed to. And had David never come along, I might not have questioned the path I was on.
Because now, something else was developing inside of me. Maybe the other way to love, the one I’d decided wasn’t an option for me . . . maybe itwas. A selfless, open way, where you took the good with the bad and the ugly with the beautiful. A way where, in order to experience bliss, you had to risk pain—you had to risk everything.
