31. Aiden
Aiden
Thursday morning, twelve days after Paige left, the finish carpenter studies the revised measurements spread across the folding table and looks around the office as though the walls might explain why I changed half the plan overnight.
“You’re sure about this?”
“Yes.”
“The shelves beneath the window went in yesterday.”
“They need to come out again.”
He gives me a long look. “Good thing you’re paying by the hour.”
“I assumed you’d find a benefit eventually.”
I carry the drill to the window and remove the first screw myself. Three low shelves run beneath the glass. I’d measured one specifically for Josie, low enough for her to reach her own books.
That was the problem. I designed the room around everyone Paige might accommodate instead of the quiet she wanted.
The carpenter taps the new drawing. “Window seat here. Shelves to the ceiling on both walls. Fireplace in that corner.”
“Electric,” I say. “No smoke or maintenance.”
“Desk beside the window?”
“She’ll want the light without losing the view.”
“And the chair?”
“Wide enough to curl up in.”
He makes another note. “You were specific about that.”
I know exactly how Paige reads. One leg folds beneath her while the other stretches over the arm. Her mouth moves slightly when a scene catches her. If I interrupt during a filthy part, she looks up with innocent eyes and makes me regret every piece of clothing between us.
Twelve nights without touching her has wrecked my concentration.
I pull the shelf free and set it against the wall.
The floor, electrical work, and new roof vent are finished. The rest of the changes are about what the space offers her, including the right to leave it empty and quiet.
“The porch stays?” he asks.
“Extend it along the west side. Add the hammock hooks where she can see the mountains.”
“You want the entrance facing away from the house now.”
“Yes.”
The old door faces the foreman’s house, close enough that I treated the short walk between them as proof this building belonged to our shared home. The new entrance will open toward the private porch and ranch road. Paige can arrive, leave, or sit outside without passing through my space first.
I point to the door hardware listed at the bottom of the order. “Key the lock separately from every other building on the ranch. All copies go to Paige.”
“You don’t want one?”
“No.”
His eyebrows rise.
“If she accepts the room, she controls who enters it.”
He glances toward the narrow cabinet in its cardboard packaging—the one I’d ordered to hold the clothes, books, and toiletries Paige was always carrying between houses.
“What about that?”
“Load it back onto your truck.”
“You don’t want storage?”
“She has a home for her things.”
The carpenter nods and walks over to mark the new doorway. I kneel to remove the next shelf.
If Paige ever wants to leave a book here, she can. If she wants a toothbrush in my bathroom again, I will clear the entire damn counter. Every choice remains hers to make.
The room will offer a fireplace, a desk, and more shelves than any reasonable person needs. It will also have a door she can lock against me, my daughter, and every Slade who considers knocking an optional courtesy.
Especially my father.
The office door opens behind me.
Hudson carries two bundles of trim beneath one arm and a cardboard tray of coffee in the other. “Your mother sent caffeine. She doesn’t trust you with a power drill before you’ve had coffee.”
“She sent you?”
“She has an optimistic definition of adult.”
He sets the coffee on the table and takes in the missing shelves, revised drawing, and unopened cabinet.
“I thought the little shelves were for Josie.”
“They were.”
“She lose her library privileges?”
“This room isn’t hers.”
Dad’s humor fades. “It’s Paige’s.”
“If she wants it.”
The words scrape against every instinct I have. I want to finish the room, bring Paige here, and know the gesture will be enough. I want a plan with an outcome I can trust.
Understanding my mistake doesn’t mean love owes me certainty.
Dad walks to the new exterior door marked on the plan. “What happens if she doesn’t want it?”
“The office stays empty until we decide what else to do with it.”
“That’s an expensive question.”
“I’ve spent more money on worse decisions.”
“Your truck comes to mind.”
“There is nothing wrong with my truck.”
“It has heated cup holders.”
“They’re useful.”
“For keeping your feelings warm?”
I take one of the coffees and hand him the drill. “You can remove the last shelf.”
He laughs, but his focus snaps back to the plans. “Are you building her an answer, or are you offering her a question?”
A week ago, I would have insisted they were the same thing. I would have finished the room, placed Paige inside it, and treated her happiness as confirmation that every decision leading there had been mine to make.
I look through the uncovered window toward the mountains she loved the first time she walked into this building.
“A question,” I say.
Two days later, Axel braces the final bookcase against the wall while I check it with a level.
“Left side needs to come up,” I say.
“It’s off by half a millimeter.”
“So, you agree it’s off.”
“I agree Paige should know this relationship comes with a neurological condition.”
Adrienne rolls another coat of deep green paint across the window trim. “He’s been like this since birth. We’ve investigated every treatment.”
“Neither of you has ever hung a shelf properly.”
“We were children,” Axel says.
“You were twenty-three.”
“That’s still a child to a Slade.”
I slide a shim beneath the bookcase. The bubble settles dead center, and Axel mutters something about obsessive assholes before driving the first screw into the stud.
The room breathes differently than it did this morning.
A new entrance opens to a private porch on the west side, its lock turning smoothly.
On the desk, a sealed envelope holds every key.
An electric fireplace glows beneath the built-in shelves, and a wide chair waits in the corner, a lamp positioned so Paige can adjust it without uncurling from a book.
The desk, clear of the window seat, is angled to catch the mountain view.
Mom presses both hands into the seat cushion, testing the firmness. “This needs another inch of padding.”
“She doesn’t want to sink into it.”
“She also doesn’t want her ass going numb halfway through a book.”
“I ordered the density Paige likes.”
Four faces turn toward me.
Adrienne lowers her paint roller. “You know the cushion density she likes?”
“She complained about the chairs at the library after a three-hour inventory meeting.”
Axel studies me. “I’ve known you for thirty-five years, and I’m confident you’ve never listened to anything I’ve said for three consecutive hours.”
“You’ve never said anything worth remembering.”
Mom hides a smile as she tugs the cover back into place. “The cushion stays. It needs a blanket, though.”
She unfolds the soft gray throw she brought and drapes it across one end, then moves the lamp closer so the switch sits within easy reach.
She has spent the afternoon making small adjustments without filling the room with decorative clutter Paige would hate.
The room is free of framed family photographs or cheerful signs—nothing that would try to tell her who to be inside it.
Dad carries a narrow table onto the porch and sets it between the hammock hooks. “Lot of work for a room we’re not supposed to mention.”
“You’re here because you own a truck,” I say.
“I own several.”
“Exactly.”
Adrienne steps off the ladder. “We know we can’t fix this for you.”
“That hasn’t stopped this family before,” Axel says.
“It should have,” I tell him.
The room falls so still I hear the drill stop in his hand.
I set the level on the desk. “I wanted permanence so badly I started acting like I owned Paige’s choices. I gave her a key she never asked for, cleared space in my house, and answered for both of us like we’d already agreed on a future.”
Dad folds his arms. “We joined in.”
“You followed my lead. I made it sound settled.”
Mom rests one hip against the window seat. “Because you were sure about her.”
“I am sure about her.” The answer comes easily. Her answer is the one I cannot claim. “I treated that certainty like permission. Everything I did was supposed to show Paige I wanted her, but I built the whole thing without asking her for the blueprints.”
Axel looks toward the separate entrance. “And now?”
“Now the room is hers if she wants it. She can use it every day, once a month, or never. It doesn’t require her to move into my house or give up the cabin. She gets every key.”
Adrienne wipes a streak of paint from her wrist. “What are you going to say to her?”
“The truth.”
“That narrows it down to several thousand words,” Axel says.
“I’ll keep it under several hundred.”
“Smart. She works with books. She knows when a man needs an editor.”
Mom walks over and presses a kiss to my cheek. “Then we’ll finish the room, and you can figure out what you need to say.”
She gives me neither suggested lines nor assurance that Paige will forgive me. She picks up the drop cloth and begins folding it while Dad carries the empty paint cans outside.
Axel drives the final screw through the top bracket. I test the case once, then again. It doesn't move.
Adrienne switches on the reading lamp. Warm light spreads across the shelves, window seat, desk, fireplace, and the clear path to a door Paige can close.
The room is quiet, private, and waiting, exactly as Paige imagined it. Whether she ever steps inside belongs to her.
By the time everyone leaves, the sun has slipped behind the mountains.
I sit on the new porch with the envelope of keys beside me and Paige’s number open on my phone. The room glows through the window behind me, complete with the adjustable lamp and the blanket Mom insisted would save Paige’s ass.
Finishing it was easier than making this call. Wood follows measurements. Shelves stay where I secure them. None of it tells me if Paige will answer, or if she'll hear anything beyond the fact that I understood too late.
I press call before another hour convinces me the words need to be perfect.
She answers on the fourth ring.
“Aiden?”
Hearing my name in her voice hurts more than twelve days of silence did.
“Hi.”
“Is Josie okay?”
“She’s fine. She’s spending the evening with my parents.” I tighten my grip on the phone. “She doesn’t know I’m calling. This is between you and me.”
“Okay.”
Her caution is quiet, but I hear it. I put it there.
“I get why you left,” I say, the words tight in my throat. “I pushed you out. I ended things because you wouldn’t sign off on a future I’d already planned without you.”
The silence that follows stretches until I can hear wind moving through the grass below the porch.
“Yes,” she says.
“The key, the holidays… I told myself I was making room. But I was just making decisions for you, and I never asked if that was an ending you even wanted.”
“Aiden…”
“Nothing has to be resolved tonight.”
She exhales slowly. I can picture her pressing her fingers to her forehead, deciding whether I mean it.
“What are you asking?”
“I finished something at the ranch. I’d like to show it to you and explain what I understand now.”
“What did you finish?”
“The old office.”
Another pause.
“That room was part of the problem.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I designed it as one more reason you should belong in my house. That isn’t what it is anymore.”
“What is it?”
The answer waits behind me in the separate entrance, the working lock, and an envelope containing every key.
“I want you to see it. Decide for yourself what it means before I say another word.”
“Aiden, if this is another way to convince me to move in…”
“It isn’t.” The denial comes out sharper than I intend, and I lower my voice. “There’s no proposal, deadline, or request waiting here. Coming to look at the room doesn’t commit you to me or anything I’ve built.”
The porch stays quiet except for the wind.
“I want another chance,” I continue. “I want you back so badly I haven’t slept through the night since you left. I also understand that wanting you doesn’t give me the right to tell you what to give me.”
Her breath catches softly across the line.
“If I say no?” she asks.
“Then I accept no.”
“And if I come but leave without giving you an answer?”
“I’ll watch you leave.”
The words scrape my throat. They are still true.
Paige remains silent long enough that I force my hand to loosen around the phone. A yes to seeing me cannot become a promise she never made.
“The library closes at seven,” she says. “I can be there around eight.”
Hope slams into me, and my hand clamps down on the porch railing.
“Take whatever time you need.”
“I said around eight, Aiden.”
There she is.
My mouth pulls into the first real smile I’ve managed in nearly two weeks. “I heard you.”
“I’ll see you tonight.”
“Paige.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry.”
The line goes quiet again.
“I know,” she says. “I’ll listen when I get there.”
After we hang up, I switch on the porch light and place the envelope of keys in the center of the desk. Then I leave the room to wait for her.
Night covers the ranch. At eight fourteen, headlights appear at the far end of the road.