Chapter 4 #2
"For an estimate. Just to see what it would cost."
"What it would cost you."
"Desi."
She picks up her portfolio. Holds it against her chest. The warmth is gone. Something cold has moved into its place, and the worst part is I recognize it. The same expression she wore the first day she showed up on my property. Guard up. Wall built. Door locked.
"Did you also fix the stove? Regrout the bathroom? What else did you do while I was gone?"
"I ordered a tankless water heater. It's coming Thursday."
The silence is brutal.
"Cancel it."
"It's already shipped."
"Then send it back." Her voice is steady. Too steady. "You don't get to fix my house, Beck. You don't get to swoop in with your credit card while I'm not home and upgrade my life because it doesn't meet your standard."
"That's not what I'm doing."
"That's exactly what you're doing. You see a problem, you throw money at it. My roof, my water heater, my porch railing, all of it. You can't just let something be imperfect."
The porch railing she's referencing is the one I helped with in the rain. The quick-set concrete she accepted. But the railing was an emergency, both of us soaked, the solution practical. This is different. I did this behind her back. Went over her head. Treated her home as a project.
"Your roof is leaking."
"My roof is my problem."
"It doesn't have to be."
"Yes it does." She steps closer. Jabs a finger at my chest. "My parents lost everything because the person who owned the building decided they didn't need to be consulted.
Somebody else's decision, somebody else's money, took away what they built.
So when you call a contractor for my property without asking me, you're not being helpful.
You're reminding me that people with money make decisions for people without it. Every. Single. Time."
It lands. Deep. Because she's right.
Everything I've done since I met this woman has been trying to solve her problems. Water line. Concrete. Generator excuse to show up at her door. Cactus mug. Roofing estimate. Water heater. My entire approach to Desireen Laurent has been transactional. See problem, provide solution, receive access.
The exact pattern from every relationship I've ever had. Solve, provide, purchase, repeat. And every one of those women eventually looked at me with flat eyes at a charity gala and said "You're a good provider, Beck" in a voice that meant nothing else.
"You're right."
"I know I'm right."
"I treated your home as a project. I didn't ask. I went around you." The words taste like ash. "That was wrong."
Her jaw is tight. Eyes bright. She's not crying. Desireen Laurent does not cry in front of men who disappoint her. She squares up. Shoulders back, chin level. A woman who's been let down before and learned to stand through it.
"You can buy anything you want, Beck. A mountain, a helicopter, an espresso machine. You can buy a roofer and a water heater and probably this entire ridge if the price was right." She takes a breath. "But you can't buy me. You can't purchase your way into my life and call it love."
The word love sits between us. Neither of us put it there on purpose. But there it is.
"I think you should go home tonight."
"Desi."
"Please."
That word costs her something. Desi doesn't say please for things she doesn't need. And she doesn't need me to leave. She's choosing to send me away because keeping me here when she's this angry would cost her something bigger.
So I go.
Walking back to my half-finished house in the dark, no generator issues this time, every light blazing, I sit in my expensive kitchen with my expensive espresso machine surrounded by furniture I didn't pick out and feel the full weight of what I've done.
Tuesday morning she let me hold her blistered hands.
Wednesday she laughed in the produce section.
Thursday she put her cold feet on my legs because my body was warm enough to reach for.
And Friday I treated her home like a problem to be solved because I couldn't sit in the discomfort of watching someone I love struggle with something I could fix in a phone call.
That's the truth. Not generosity. Discomfort. I couldn't stand watching her live with a leaky roof because it made me feel useless. So I did the one thing that makes me feel useful, spent money, and in doing so proved that I haven't learned a goddamn thing about what she actually needs from me.
My phone buzzes. My CFO. Board meeting tomorrow, the one I was supposed to fly back for. I silence it.
Another buzz. Greta, the architect. Window shipment delayed. Construction paused until next week. I silence that too.
The house makes its sounds. The crawl space settling, groaning, doing whatever empty houses do at night.
For eight months I've been building something on this mountain.
Pouring money into a structure that's supposed to become a home.
But a home requires more than materials and a blueprint.
It requires someone to come through the door at the end of the day.
Someone whose mud-caked boots you trip over in the hallway.
Someone whose landscape sketches cover the kitchen table.
Someone who gives you the good mug and argues about squash.
My phone sits on the counter. No text from Desi. The screen stays dark.
I cancel the water heater. Send the roofing company an email withdrawing the estimate request. Both take less than a minute.
Then I sit at the kitchen island, alone, trying to figure out how to show a woman who builds things with her own hands that I'm worth more than my bank account.
The answer doesn't come from Google. It doesn't come from my therapist's voicemail, which I fill with a six minute ramble at midnight. It doesn't come from the whiskey I pour and drink standing at the window, staring across the dark ridge toward her cabin, where one light is still on.
She's awake too. Working, probably. Or sketching her drainage plans. Or sitting on her porch in the dark, drinking wine from a mason jar, refusing to think about me.
The cactus mug. The one I spent sixty dollars overnighting from Kamloops. She gave it to me. Twice. Poured my coffee into it, called it the good mug, said I earned one coffee in it.
She didn't give me the mug because it was expensive. She gave it to me because she chose to.
That's the currency. The only one she accepts.
Showing up. Getting your hands dirty. Choosing her without trying to change the terms.
The light in her cabin goes off at one thirty.
I don't sleep.