Chapter Forty-Seven
MATO
THE HOUSE smells like cut pine and dust.
Connor called yesterday and asked us to walk through the house to make sure we agree on how everything is set before he makes things permanent. The crew is taking off for the holidays and will be back at it right after the New Year, so he didn’t want any hiccups.
The new bathrooms are framed, and there are bare studs where a wall used to be between the kitchen and the living room.
Tangled wiring is running through joists, and there is a tarp in the corner of the kitchen with old sheetrock piled on it.
All the floors are plywood and ready for new carpet and tile; it almost looks like a new house.
Not done, but getting there.
As soon as we walk through the front door, Koda takes off down the hall and runs up the stairs. “Don’t take anything apart, especially anything that’s holding the house up.” I jokingly call after him.
“I know.” He yells back, and I shake my head, knowing he’ll find something.
Nova trails after him a few steps and then doubles back, standing at the foot of the stairs. “Can I pick which one I want?”
There are three bedrooms, and the master bedroom upstairs, and Marley nods. “One of the three smaller rooms.”
She turns and goes up the stairs as fast as her little legs can carry her.
Breanna laughs under her breath and then drifts through the house. She stops in the little nook in the kitchen by the window.
I follow.
The half-circle of colored panes over the big picture window is the one thing in this house she has talked about the most. She’s been in this house to see how the light shines through it at every time of day.
She’s looking out over the yard, her arms crossed over her chest. A piece of blue light is lying across her hair and part of her shoulder.
“When I bought this place, I used to imagine what it would be like sitting right here at a kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee, and all the different colored lights shining in the room.” Her voice is light.
I don’t say anything.
"I told myself this would be enough." She uncrosses her arms and reaches up, touching one of the colored panes with two fingers. "A pretty place. A place that already knew what family sounded like and was just going to have me. I’d made my peace with it being just me. Over time, I had become okay with being in the quiet.”
I knew that quiet she meant because I'd put it there.
Somewhere over our heads, Nova’s footsteps cross a room, and further back something metal clatters, followed by Koda saying, ‘Oops’.
Breanna’s head turns toward the sound with a smile.
And then I watch the happy contentment settle on her face.
I’ve spent my whole life learning her face.
I know what happiness looked like on her at seven when we would catch crawdads in the stream; I watched happiness in so many forms as we got to know each other in every way when we were teenagers; I saw furious anger when I came back; and utter sadness in a hospital waiting room.
As she looks through that window, I know exactly what I’m looking at right now as the light shifts and she lets go of what she’s been carrying all these years. I see peace and happiness.
“It’s not going to be just me.” Her voice is soft.
“No, nudo, it’s not.”
She finally turns to look at me, her eyes are wet, but she’s not trying to hide it, not like she would have four months ago, and it makes my throat close.
Her voice wobbles, but she smiles as she says, “Koda’s going to take the doorknobs off and Nova is picking out a room.”
“She is.”
“I’m their…” She chokes on a sob and presses her lips together. She presses her hand to her sternum and looks for confirmation for a sentence she can’t finish without crying.
I cup her face in my hands, the way I dreamed of doing for ten years, and set my forehead against hers. “You are their mother, nudo.”
A half-sob, half-laugh escapes on a choke, and she grabs my shirt in her fists. I hold the mother of those two kids and the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with in the middle of an unfinished house while the window she loves throws colors over both of us.
The ring has been in my pocket for months. The small, hard weight burning against my skin, begging to be brought out. Everything in me wants to drop down on one knee right now on this dusty fucking floor and ask her. But I can’t.
For ten years, she’s been living with her grief and loneliness. Half of that is my fault. Right now, she’s finding out that life is going to be much fuller than she thought it would be. I don’t want to piggyback on that. I’ll wait.
For now, I’ll just hold on and let her be exactly what she's just figured out she is.