Epilogue – Tara
TARA
One year later.
The smoke alarm went off over the stove, and Thomas lifted the pan off the burner without concern.
“One minute less and they’d have been perfect,” he said.
“Only a minute? The eggs look almost petrified.”
“I’m still working on my technique,” he said, plating them anyway.
We ate standing at the temporary counter, two sawhorses and a slab of butcher block. The real cabinets were stacked in the dining room, waiting to be installed. Dust sheets covered the parlor chairs, and the balusters were stripped to bare wood, ready to be refinished.
A year ago, I’d have called this chaos. Standing in it with coffee on a Saturday morning, it felt like progress.
The home was an 1880s townhouse six blocks from the Settlement House.
I’d surveyed eleven candidates and rejected ten before choosing this one.
It had spent a century absorbing other people’s ideas of upgrades.
Vinyl tile over original hardwood, a dropped ceiling hiding plaster cornices, every hinge painted.
Beneath it all, the structure was sound. Whoever had worked on it across the decades had done the invisible parts right. I stood in the parlor, looked up at the exposed joists.
“Good bones,” I said.
Thomas laughed so hard he had to sit on an upside-down paint bucket. He knew I was borrowing Declan’s favorite verdict.
Both our names were on the deed, and both of us were putting in the restoration work.
I missed the sounds of the old rental house sometimes, but the new one had its own theme song. Pipes, sash, a loose board on the landing. I’m learning the words, which feels less like starting over and more like a translation.
The photograph was hung before any furniture was placed.
Matty took it at the frame-raising using my old college camera, the cheap one with the dented body.
He caught me and Thomas mid-laugh, touching each other.
Natural and spontaneous, with sawdust in his hair, and my freckles fully present and accounted for.
It was the first candid picture taken of either of us and it hung on the parlor wall and served as a statement piece.
We’re still going to the counselor in Fishtown. Somewhere around midwinter we stopped calling the work repair. Maintenance, our counselor calls it now, and she’s right. Buildings don’t graduate from maintenance. They stay standing because of it.
Thomas’s small gestures keep arriving. Pencils sharpened before I notice they’ve gone dull. Boots dried and stuffed by the door after rain. A torn page in my survey book mended with archival tape without asking.
Each gesture is a gift freely given without expectation, the message clear. Just done because it needed doing. Lately, I’ve been leaving my boots where he’ll find them, which is its own kind of message.
At the Settlement House, the title transferred to the block’s nonprofit, and the building is doing what it was originally intended to do.
Literacy classes are held in the basement under the joist marked 1911.
Dance recitals happen in the hall. The cornice went back up bracket by bracket over the winter, and Miss Dot inspected each one from a folding chair, issuing grades.
I got a B-on the west run, which I’ve decided to regard as generous.
The weekends belong to Salem whenever we can manage the drive. Declan’s crew has the cottage interior down to finish work. They’re doing everything by hand and getting full wages.
When Thomas tried to tack a bonus onto the most recent draw, Declan handed the envelope back and said, “Wages.” That was the entire speech, and it settled the matter permanently.
Matty spends weekends on the jobsite too, sanding casing for real pay plus hot dogs at a rate both he and Declan continue to consider favorable.
Declan set the salvaged summer beam himself.
No help offered or wanted. He walked it true, checked the seat with his thumbnail, and stepped back.
Danny’s chisel marks ride the grayed oak overhead, angled outward, the exit of his hand kept in the cut.
The beam had waited years in a barn for its place in that that ceiling.
The queasiness I’d been feeling for a few weeks had hitched a ride to Philadelphia with us. I wanted to blame Thomas’s eggs, and they probably deserved some of it. By the time we pulled into Salem, though, I’d admitted the likely culprit to myself.
The drugstore on Essex Street keeps the tests behind the pharmacy counter.
I bought one and took into the cottage bathroom when we got there.
After I peed on the stick, I sat on the edge of the tub and watched the clock.
I checked the result twice, the way you re-measure a critical dimension that affects the whole drawing.
Two solid lines.
I sat there a while longer while fear washed over me in a wave and went out like the tide. A year ago, the fear would have turned to terror and settled in for the long haul. What I felt now was giddiness. The excitement and want and timing all felt right.
With the stick in hand, I went to find my husband. I caught his attention and handed him the stick. He looked at it with confusion.
“I’m pregnant, Tommy.”
He dropped to his knees, then sat down. He laughed, once, wrecked, and pressed the heel of his hands against his eyes.
He reached for me, the wedding band back on his finger, and pulled me to the ground and into his arms. The ring had had come out of the drawer shortly after our reconciliation. Unannounced and without fanfare. Everything that matters to Thomas happens that way now.
Thomas’s hand settled over my flat belly, his fingers warm and comforting. He hadn’t expected this, that was clear. Neither of us had.
But we were ready for it.
The foundation of our marriage was set now. Maintenance would keep it strong.