Lukas
With my hands on my hips, I stand in the center of the living room, looking around at all I’ve accomplished in the last seventeen months.
What was once an abandoned farmhouse with a caved-in roof and thousands of dead mice is now a three-bedroom, two bathrooms, completely remodeled home that I could move into any day now. It’ll be a home where Ivy grows up, and someday, it’ll be the house that Magnolia makes her forever home.
My chest aches at the thought, and I raise a hand to rub the area.
It’s not fair, sometimes, dealing with the distance.
Not fair that she has to miss out on so many special occasions all in the name of her career.
Not fair to love someone so goddamn much and have to settle for seeing them once every few months.
But I know it’s what makes her happy, it’s her dream, so if I have to grin and bear it a few more years to keep that smile on her face, so be it.
I sigh, leaning over to pop open the lid to the paint can.
Harper all but scowled at me when she saw that I’m painting the main living area Oatmeal.
Which is basically white, which is basically a prison, she claimed.
What she doesn’t know is that I’ll let her pick a color for an accent wall in the living room. Maybe.
A car door slams as I pour the paint into the tray, and I rack my brain to see who would be stopping by.
My family has stopped by periodically to see the updates. It’s Tuesday, so Harper will be bringing her goats their weekly case of bananas, but she usually stays at the main house for dinner and to catch up with the fam.
I give it another minute, waiting to see if I hear feet coming up the front steps, and when I don’t, I move a few paces to the bay window, my eyes squinting at the car in the drive that I don’t recognize.
A small silver car with an Illinois license plate sits in the driveway, no driver inside, but it’s when I move to look at the person standing by the front porch that my heart gets caught in my throat.
“Mags?” I rasp, dropping the roller to the floor and running through the house.
I whip open the front door, and the frigid evening air slaps me in the face. I don’t even bother to close it behind me as I cross the porch and take the front steps two at a time. “Mags?” I call, rushing toward her and reaching my arms out to go grip her shoulders.
“Baby, what … what? What’s going on? Why are you here?” I look down at her feet, making sure she isn’t wearing another walking boot, but all I see are sweatpants tucked into fuzzy winter boots. “Baby?” I ask again, shaking her shoulders.
“Lukas, what am I looking at?” Her eyes are looking past me, toward the house, pupils blown wide, and an almost terrified expression on her face, disbelief, maybe.
I don’t break my gaze from her, and I take in her rumpled clothing, her hair that’s twisted in a top knot on her head, the pink lining the rims of her lids, and her bloodshot eyes.
She looks exhausted, confused, worn down.
I take a step forward, wanting to pull her into my arms and have her spill every thought from her beautiful mind, but when I take that next step, her hands come up, and her palms gently press on my abs to stop me.
I freeze, unsure if she’s angry, sad, confused, likely all of the above, so I place my hands over her palms, squeezing. “It’s our house.”
Her lips twitch, barely, gaze still watery. “It doesn’t look like our house anymore.”
The tension is killing me, and I want to take her inside and show her around, but I need to know why she’s here. Why isn’t she in Paris right now? “Mags, what happened? What … how come you’re here?”
She gently pulls her hands from mine, moving past me to take the path up to the front steps. The smooth brick that lines the path is currently covered with snow, and she takes light but sure steps, ensuring she doesn’t fall until she reaches the front stoop.
She takes the first stair, moving slowly, tentatively, and when she reaches the top, she turns to spin, looking back at me much like she did that summer after high school, the last time we were here together.
Her body is taught, stiff, as she stares back at me. Then she spins, looking at the sun that’s threatening to lower into the sky.
It’s the view she has always loved.
She then turns toward the front door that’s still hanging half open.
The warm glow from the inside lights illuminates her skin as she thinks, and then she reaches a hand out, palm barely touching the wood as she presses forward.
That’s when my feet take motion, and I jog up the path, taking the steps in one stride and meeting her at the front door.
I wrap a hand around her stomach, pulling her so my chest presses to her back.
My lips touch the top of her head, and she sinks into me the slightest amount.
With the next exhale and a gentle push, the door swings wide, and the smell of fresh paint greets us. When she doesn’t move, I squeeze her hip, gesturing her forward.
She steps over the threshold, and the old floors creak just like they always have, but they look different now.
The grayed dusty wood is now buffed and stained.
The entire house is a mix of old and new, a mix of who we were then and who we could be in the future.
Old and worn, yet strong. She moves into the front hall and pauses, slowly spinning around as her head tilts back.
“It was a drop-down ceiling,” I tell her, following her into the house and closing the door behind me. “Didn’t realize how high they were until we knocked them out.”
She looks at me briefly, and her eyes are flushed with tears.
She then moves into the kitchen. With the two main walls taken down, it's an open concept now, which I hope she likes.
She rests a palm on the marble island that separates the cooking area from the seating area, sliding her fingertips along the edge as she moves around it.
“I haven’t picked out a kitchen table yet,” I point out, gesturing to the empty spot in front of the bay window. “I’d like something big, something I could maybe host my family with someday.” Or big enough for all the kids that we have, hope to have, someday.
She stands in front of the fridge, the plastic that still wraps it crinkling under her touch.
“It’s one of those fancy ones that can make three different kinds of ice.” I know she prefers smaller crushed ice for her ice water, but she likes thicker cubes for her iced coffee.
This one even has a storage for large almost-lacrosse-ball-sized ice orbs, and I don't know what she would use them for, but I thought she might like it. I could see her using them for fancy lemonade or iced tea on summer nights.
I reach over, flicking on the overhead light to illuminate the room, and her eyes dart up to the chandelier.
It isn’t something I would have ever picked out myself.
It’s a mix of wood and metal, in the shape of a drum, and I was surprised how good it looked once we hung it up.
Just like the rest of the house, it’s a mix of old and new, and it looks like it belongs there.
“Harper picked that out. I laughed at first when she showed it to me, but I have to admit, it looks good here.”
She nods once, then looks over at me, and her gaze falls past my shoulder, toward the room that was once a small parlor that led into the den. She rushes past me, her speed picked up, and I know what she's focused on.
I suck in a breath, watching as she bypasses the now living room and goes to stand in front of two dark oak French doors. The glass is frosted, but not all the way. You’d have privacy but still be able to see movement behind the doors and the sunlight shining through in the early morning.
Her hands reach out, taking both knobs in each, and I can hear her shaky exhale as she turns the knobs, pushing the doors open to reveal the room.
The room is designed with her and only her in mind.
She moves to stand at the center, her arms wrapped across her stomach, and I approach her cautiously, carefully choosing the next few words, because I know they will matter.
I get close enough to her that I can smell the scent of her perfume, and the silky strands that stick out from her bun tickle my nose when I breathe in.
“When I started to remodel the house, it was first a project to help with my sobriety. I needed something to focus my energy on, my restlessness. I had left you that first voicemail the day I convinced my brothers to help me with this place. I told them that I wanted a place of my own. I wanted somewhere Ivy could spend her time that wasn’t always at the main house with my parents. ”
She doesn’t move, doesn’t flinch. Her gaze is locked on the long barre that stretches the length of one wall and the oversized windows that line the entire wall as well.
“There were times I wondered if you’d ever answer my phone call.
And I had made peace with the fact that maybe you never would, and having this house, knowing I could live out the rest of my years here with the memories of us to keep me warm?
That was enough to keep me going through those early months. ”
Some nights, I imagined a life where I grew old, alone. Ivy will grow up and eventually move away, and it’d be just me and this old house. I could sit on a rocking chair on the front porch and sip my coffee, watch the sunrise each morning, and recount all the memories made on this property.
Falling in love with Mags. Hiding out here as teenagers. Holding her on the front step when her grandpa died. Lying with her in the fields as we watched the clouds pass. Her shrieks of laughter carried across the grass.
Soon, Ivy will move out here with me, and I’ll get to watch her learn to run all over the floors in the house. I’ll teach her to play ball in the same fields Mags and I played. Maybe I’d hold her on the front step when some asshole kid breaks her heart for the first time.