Chapter 16 Home #3
We walk up to the front door. Nathan unlocks it. He pushes it open and then he steps aside and lets me walk in first.
The house is empty. Our furniture won't arrive until tomorrow.
The movers are coming at eight in the morning with the bed and the couch and the kitchen table and the bookshelf that Nathan insisted on buying because he owns enough books to justify dedicated furniture.
For now it's just rooms. Bare walls and clean floors and windows that let the late-afternoon light pour in golden and warm.
I walk through every room. The living room where we'll put the couch Nathan wants to pick out together and the TV I already know he'll rarely watch because he'd rather read.
The kitchen where I'll learn to cook more than five things because Nathan has been quietly adding to my recipe repertoire since our second month together.
The spare bedroom that could be an office or a reading room or could eventually be something else that neither of us has said out loud yet but both of us have thought about.
The main bedroom has windows facing west. Same direction as my apartment on Birch Street. The afternoon sun will come through the same way. I'll have that familiar warmth in a new space and the continuity of that feels important even though I couldn't explain why.
Nathan follows me through the rooms. He leans against doorframes and watches me explore. He doesn't rush me. He doesn't narrate. He lets me take it in at my own pace, which is how Nathan handles most things.
When I get to the kitchen I stop. I stand in the middle of the room and I look at the counters and the cabinets and the window above the sink that looks out at the backyard where two oak trees provide shade over grass that needs mowing.
The kitchen is functional and clean and smaller than the kitchens in the listings Blake and I used to look at online.
Those listings had island counters and double ovens and walk-in pantries.
This kitchen has a standard layout and basic appliances and enough counter space for two people to cook together without bumping elbows.
"This is the kitchen," I say.
"It is."
"Blake and I were going to have a big kitchen. That was always the plan. A house with a big kitchen and a wraparound porch and a yard big enough for a garden. I used to save pictures of kitchens on my phone. Granite countertops. Farmhouse sinks. The whole thing."
"Is this kitchen too small?"
"This kitchen is perfect. It's exactly right. Because the size of the kitchen was never the point. The point was sharing it with someone who tells the truth. A big kitchen with a liar in it is just a big room full of lies. A small kitchen with you in it is everything I need."
He crosses the kitchen and stands in front of me and puts his hands on my waist. His body blocks most of the afternoon light from the window and I look up at him and he looks down at me and we're standing in the kitchen of our house.
"Are you happy?" he asks.
"Yes. Are you?"
"More than I've ever been."
He kisses me in our kitchen. In our house. On our first afternoon as homeowners. His hands are on my waist and mine are on his chest and the empty house is quiet around us and the oak trees outside the window are full of new leaves.
That night we sleep on an air mattress on the bedroom floor because the bed frame hasn't been delivered yet and won't arrive until Thursday.
The house is quiet around us. New-house quiet.
Unfamiliar creaks and unknown sounds from a neighborhood we're still learning.
A dog barking three houses down. Wind in the oak trees outside our window.
The settling of a roof over rooms that are waiting to be filled.
Nathan lies beside me on the air mattress. I curl into him. His arm goes around me. I press my ear to his chest and I listen to his heartbeat. Steady. Slow. Real.
"Nathan?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm home."
He tightens his arm around me. He presses his mouth against the top of my head.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "You are."
I close my eyes. The air mattress isn't comfortable and the room is empty and our furniture is somewhere between a warehouse and our driveway.
The kitchen doesn't have a single pot or pan in it yet.
The walls are bare. The closets are empty.
The house smells like fresh paint and cleaning solution and possibility.
But I'm lying next to a man who tells the truth.
In a house that belongs to us. On a street in a town where everyone knows my story and most of them are rooting for me.
I have a ring on my finger from a man who showed me his bank statements before he showed me the diamond.
I have a sister who helped me survive the worst months of my life.
I have friends who chose truth over convenience.
I have a career at a salon where my boss is training me to take over someday.
I have a garden that Dorothy taught me to plant.
I have everything I need.
I'm home.