“I’m sorry, babe. I’m really sorry to hear that.” (Is Stevenchewingsomething?)
“Um,” she says. “You’re sorry? That’s it?”
“Yeah. Sure. I love that house too. We’ve had some really good times there.”
“Good times?We got married here!”
“Right. Of course. But maybe it’s all for the best. I mean, it must be expensive to run that house. All those constant repairs! The salt water does a number on the shingles. And think of all the places we can start to visit instead, sometime in the future, once Owls Head isn’t our only option. I’ve always wanted to do two weeks on the Cape. Or even Nantucket, or the Vineyard! Someplace with lots of sandy beaches, maybe with surfing.”
All for the best?Has someone absconded with her actual husband and left this stranger in his place? Sandy beaches?Surfing? Steven doesn’t surf. “You don’t surf,” she says.
“No. But I’ve always wanted to. And the kids could learn! Abigail has amazing balance. And Claire’s fearless. They’d love it.” Louisa feels like this conversation has crossed three lanes of traffic to take an illegal left where she didn’t intend it to go. “And you said recently you want to take them to Disney. Or Europe! I always wished I grew up in the kind of family that could afford to go to Europe. I still haven’t seen the Eiffel Tower.”
“I’ve seen it,” Louisa says. “It’s not that great. But what I’m thinking is something different.” She steels herself, tightens her core. All hard things, the exercise people tell you, start with the core. “What I’m thinking is—what if we use the Emergency Fund forthis—to save the house for my mom, and for us, and for our kids.”
“No,” says Steven. “No.”
“You should see them up here, Steven.”
Even from so many miles away and with no visual cues Louisa can sense a tightening in Steven’s aspect. “I see them up there all the time,” he says.
“But they’ve never spent the whole summer here, the way I used to, until this summer. You’ve never seenthis! They’re so... settled in. They’re so happy. Abigail hasn’t asked me if she could get TikTok fordays.They hardly ever turn on the TV. Claire’s helping Danny, the lawn guy, with the garden. She asks him every day if she can weed! Matty practically has a girlfriend, did he tell you? And besides that ... you know how much this house means to me.” This feels like a dramatic understatement, like calling the 120-foot yacht that sailed in the day before out of Cayman a cute raft. “It’s part of me, Steven. It’s part of my family. I can’t lose it.” The pause that follows is so big Louisa wonders if it’s pregnant with triplets. “Hello?” Has Steven hung up? But no—she can hear his little huffs of breath, the kind he makes when he’s stressed. She endures another fifteen seconds, listening to the huffs, and then she says, “Are you still there?”
“I’m here.”
“So—what do you think? Do you think we could consider it? The Emergency Fund?”
“Well, no. I don’t.”
In a voice that sounds like it belongs to someone else—a visiting mouse, maybe; a tiny, squeaky voice—she says, “You don’t?”
“No. I don’t thinkthishappens to be an emergency, Louisa. You love it up there, I get it. But we can always rent a place for a week or two, if it’s that important to you to be in that area. I’d totally be on board with that. Maybe not every summer, but who knows? Every other.”
“Rent a place?” She’d rather pull out each of her eyelashes with a pair of tweezers and then feed them, one by one, to Otis. Steven doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation, and her blood isbeginning to simmer. “I’m notrenting a placein Owls Head. Steven. I grew up here! Inthis house.I’m not going torent a place,every other summer.We’re not just going to find a house like this on VRBO!”
Steven sighs. “You can find anything on VRBO. Seriously, Louisa, will you listen to yourself? I’m sorry, but if you think the Emergency Fund should stay untouched, and that’s what you thought whenIhad an emergency, then it should stay untouched for all the same reasons, when you have an emergency too.”
“But this is an actual emergency!”
“To you.”
She bites her lip. “But—you wanted to put money into a business. You have other ways to find money for that. I don’t! This is home, and family. Our family. We can’t just, like,find an investorto help my mom pay for my dad’s care. It doesn’t work that way.”
“Listen, Lou.” His words are clipped. “I’ve got to get back in the studio. They’re waiting for me. Okay?”
“Okay.” She waits for Steven to end the call, then puts the phone on her lap.“This,” she says, to nobody, or everybody, “is what’s known in the business as a stalemate.” She feels her heart grow hard and unyielding, like a rock.
20.
Matty
Matty enters the kitchen cautiously, scared of Pauline, not wanting to admit his fear. But nonetheless really wanting a banana. The kitchen is empty so he scurries over to the fruit bowl. Then, like a ghost, she’s there.
“Hey there, Mr. Matty,” she says. He jumps back; the banana drops to the floor. “What are you up to?” She’s carrying bags from Hannaford, the straps straining around her wrists.
“Nothing,” he says. Then, because he knows this is what his mother would want him to do, he says, “I can help you with those.”
“No need.” She hefts the bags onto the counter and begins to unload them. “You don’t need to be scared of me, you know,” she says. “Hazel says you’re a nice boy.”
