Chapter 27
They leave the airport garage, winding downward.
Troy pays the exorbitant exit fee—they’d parked in the one closest to the terminal so that they wouldn’t have to wait for a shuttle in the predawn darkness the morning they left.
Then they’re off, turning along the back roads, then easing onto the highway.
It takes Klara fifteen minutes to notice they’re not heading toward her condo in downtown Rockville.
Troy has been living there, too, the last few weeks, ever since he slid the ring on her finger, but he doesn’t think of it as his.
It’s only Klara’s name on the deed—it was hers before she met him, something left over from an earlier life, in which he didn’t exist and that he’d rather they both forget.
It’s something they’ll soon be rid of. His wife just doesn’t know this yet.
She’s exhausted, head tipped sideways, resting against the front passenger window.
“Where are we going?” she asks, voice soft and weary, perhaps still considering the possibility that he’s simply taking her back to the condo via a different route than what she’s used to.
They are traveling west but veering to the north, not south, hurtling down the highway. He’s nervous, pulse fluttering in his neck. That’s the Klara effect, still, even now that she’s his wife.
“I have a surprise for you,” Troy says.
It’s early evening. They had a long day of travel. But it’s nearly summer now, one of the longest days of the year, so the sky remains lit.
“Troy,” says Klara, still weary, “I’m so tired. I just want to rest. Is that okay?”
“Of course,” he tells her, affronted. Of course he knows his pregnant wife, with her first-trimester sickness and fatigue, needs to rest. “That’s where I’m taking you. Somewhere you can rest.”
“I want to go home,” she says, tiny and petulant. She sounds thankless, entitled. Anger flashes before Troy’s eyes.
“Just trust me,” he tells her, his anger injecting a stern fatherlike finality into his tone.
Klara sighs, but she says nothing more.
It’s a shorter drive than it would be to the condo. Only fifteen minutes more, then he’s easing onto the brake pedal as his car coasts down the street. He spins the wheel, curving into the driveway. He can barely breathe as he shuts off the motor. He turns his head to study his wife.
“What is this?” she asks, squinting through the windshield. “Where are we?”
“We’re home,” Troy says. “This is home.”
Troy watches her take in the brick-front, the freshly painted door, the covered porch, the two planters overflowing with pansies. The pristine front yard, with no For Sale sign. That’s because the house isn’t for sale. Not anymore. Troy already closed on it.
Troy watches his wife catalog her observations, watches them click into place. He expects her to smile, gasp, throw her arms around him. Instead, her face crumples.
“What do you mean?” she asks. “I don’t understand.”
“This is our new home,” he tells her patiently. “Come on,” he adds, pushing his car door open. “I’ll show you.”
He has the key to the front door on his key ring already. They leave everything in the car, suitcases and backpacks, and he unlocks the front door, pushes inside. Klara follows him tentatively.
“I think the previous owners had cats,” he tells her, because the odor is undeniable. “Maybe that’s why I got a good deal.”
He didn’t. Not really. There was a bidding war for the house, and he ended up paying more than the listing price.
He spent an entire day completing forms, securing the mortgage, selling stock, and liquidating part of his retirement account.
But he needed the house. He refused to lose it to some other couple.
It was the perfect family home, already a cedar playground in the backyard, with dark-green awnings and two yellow swings, babyproof locks on the kitchen cabinets, a two-car garage big enough for the stroller and wagon as well as both of their cars.
“Formal dining room,” he tells her, hand gentle on the small of her back. “Living room. This is an office, or it could be a playroom.”
Klara’s face is impassive, lips pressed into a line.
“The kitchen is nice, right? The Realtor told me it was fully remodeled in the last five years.”
She nods slightly, the tiniest acknowledgment of his words.
The cabinets are white, the countertops a glimmering ivory veined with gray.
The walls, throughout the entire house, are freshly painted—by the sellers, but they did them in a pale dove-gray, classic and inoffensive, so Troy’s not expecting they’ll need to be changed.
He ignores the powder room, which is perhaps the most dated room in the house, and takes her out back onto the deck. Beneath it is a stone patio, and beyond that the playground, before the yard slopes gently downward.
“It’s not fenced,” Troy says, “but since two of the neighboring yards are, it won’t be too expensive for us to close it in completely.”
He’s picturing a dog, golden ears flopping, while his gorgeous, dark-haired daughter runs parallel. He’s not sure why, but he thinks they’ll have a girl. He’ll call her kiddo, and he’ll learn to braid her hair. His girls.
“Huh,” says Klara. She turns away before he does, back toward the sliding glass door.
“Upstairs,” he tells her—a suggestion, not a command—and she hovers in the hallway for a beat too long, but then she follows.
The hardwoods creak slightly as they climb. He leads her to the three smaller bedrooms first, all of which are empty. “Kids’ bathroom,” he says, gesturing toward the other full bath on the second floor. “And this is the primary bedroom.”
He steps inside the room at the end of the hall, the final part of his surprise. It’s the only room that’s not empty.
“I told you,” he says, “that you could rest.”
He spent nearly twenty thousand dollars on this room alone.
The bedroom furniture is a stylish and beachy distressed gray, the bedding bright white.
He can picture Klara placing the baby in the middle of the comforter, dark hair sliding against her cheeks in curtains as she leans forward to blow raspberries on their daughter’s belly.
“This is a Ritz-Carlton mattress and bedding,” he explains, trailing his fingers along the fabric.
“Apparently, you can order everything on their website. I looked into it after we booked the honeymoon and thought it would always remind us of when we stayed in paradise. The softest bed we’ve ever felt. ”
He takes a few steps away from the bed. “And this is a smart bassinet. It senses when there’s crying, and it rocks the baby and plays white noise.” He’d performed hours of research on his phone before selecting the bassinet.
“Wow,” she says, but she’s already looking away, eyes darting around the room.
“I bought you a toothbrush and a pair of pajamas,” he says. “So you can go to sleep here. Now, if you want. You don’t even have to go back to the condo.”
“What if I want to go back to the condo?” Klara snaps, suddenly alert, like he’s shaken her awake.
Troy flinches at her tone. He waits for her to continue.
“How did you—when did you even do this? How did you do all of this behind my back?” There’s a wobble in her voice now, tears imminent.
“I used my savings and I did a three-week close. I ordered the furniture and scheduled it to be delivered and assembled while we were away. I had a cleaning service come in to clean and make up the bed, to open and unload the packages. And they’ll come in every week to clean.
I’ve already signed a contract with them. You won’t have to worry about that.”
“Thank you,” she says, and she laughs, the most bitter laugh he’s ever heard, a sound so brittle and hateful he’d never thought his beautiful Klara was capable.
“I thought you would be,” he says, frowning.
“Thanking me, I mean. I thought you’d be happy.
I did all of this for you, Klara. For you and our baby.
Were you really planning on staying in your condo?
On raising the baby there? We have a yard here.
There’s a preschool and elementary school within walking distance, and they’re highly rated. ”
“Maybe so,” Klara says. “Maybe this is empirically a better place to raise a child. But I don’t even know where I am right now. You’ve taken me completely out of it. Don’t you get that? I’ve gotten no say in anything. You’ve made all the decisions for me.”
“Good decisions,” says Troy, defensive. “The best decisions. I bought you a fucking house, Klara.”
She opens her mouth, closes it again. He’s never cursed at her before, and he wishes he hadn’t, but he’s angry.
This was not how he’d expected things to go.
He was certain that even if Klara was less than pleased by what he’d done, she’d hide it.
He thought that, at best, she’d weep with joy, and at worst, she’d thank him with a tight smile and icy tone, and she’d be cold for a few weeks but she’d come around, to the house, to the life he’d created for their family.
“But this house must be forty-five minutes from my office,” Klara says at last. “Much worse in traffic. How will I manage that commute? Especially when I have the baby to manage. When I have to cut into my workday to pump milk and take her to day care and appointments. I can’t spend a couple hours in the car every day.
And when I have to go even farther out, for court appearances… ” She sounds panicked.
“Klara,” he says, “haven’t I made things clear? You don’t have to.”
“I don’t have to what?” She seems genuinely bewildered.
“You don’t have to manage your career, the commute, along with the baby. You can quit your job. Enjoy your pregnancy and rest. Take a few years off, if you want.”
She laughs, that bitter sound again.
“You didn’t make partner,” he reminds her gently. “And I—well, I did.”
His final surprise. He studies her face, searching for pride, for relief. All he sees is tightness.
“I found out just before we left.”
The truth. He doesn’t tell her the way he forced the firm’s hand.
That he interviewed for a senior associate position with a competing firm, that he secured an offer.
That he took the offer back to his firm and demanded that he be included in the next class of partners, or else he’d be gone in two weeks.
He doesn’t tell her that he fudged the offer a bit—the salary, the title—when he informed his current boss.
A risk, yes, but risk is what Troy does.
And things tend to work out just the way he wants. He makes sure of it.
“I hope that’s not upsetting for you, Klara,” he continues. “That I made it and you didn’t.” He decides to call her on her icy envy. Her utter lack of happiness in the face of her husband’s success.
She blinks at him, then glances down. “Of course not,” she says stiffly. “Good for you.”
“Klara, I’m your husband. I love you so much,” he insists. “I did this, all of this, because I love you. Because I want the world for you.”
For another moment, she’s frozen. And then her shoulders begin to shake, her chin falls to her chest.
“I’m sorry you didn’t make partner, and I’m sorry you got pregnant when you didn’t want to. But maybe that’s the universe telling us that this is what’s right for you, for us, right now.”
Klara shakes her head, and Troy takes a tentative step toward her. She doesn’t back away, and when he stretches an arm across her upper back and leads her to the edge of the bed, she allows it.
He sinks down beside her, arm resting heavily on her shoulders, which are shaking still.
“Let me take care of you,” he whispers, pressing his lips into her hair. “That’s all I’m trying to do.”