16

On a warm October morning, I found myself standing in the bathroom, staring at a positive pregnancy test. Donald was over a year old, and we’d been hoping to have another kid sometime soon. Since neither Joe nor I had siblings, it seemed like it would be nice for Donald to have a brother or sister who would be close enough in age to be a buddy. Now that I was actually pregnant, though, my worries overshadowed my daydreams about Donald frolicking hand-in-hand with another Fulwiler child. For one thing, what would we do about our living situation? Things were already cramped here at my mom’s house; I couldn’t imagine how we’d squeeze a new baby into the mix.

I called Joe to tell him the news. He was excited, but I’d caught him five minutes before a big meeting, so we didn’t get to chat much. It was Irma’s day off, so I couldn’t distract myself with work. I tried flipping channels in the living room while Donald colored, but there were no good shows on, and Donald seemed more interested in shredding the pages of the coloring book than creating art with them.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned off the television, strapped Donald into his car seat, and headed into Austin. It was time to take action.

* * *

“Will your husband be meeting us?” the realtor asked.

“No, it’s just me,” I said, resting Donald on my hip as I peered through a window into the empty house.

She unlocked the door, and I stepped into a long living room. It had the musty smell of a house built in the 1970s and none of the charm of its restored bungalow neighbors, but there was plenty of space. The hallway at the end of the room led to four bedrooms, and the porch outside the sliding glass door would only need a few touch-ups to be perfect for parties.

“It just went on the market yesterday morning,” the realtor said, raising her voice to get my attention as I admired the brand new stove, and the dishwasher that had more buttons than a space shuttle.

My heart beat faster as I inspected the bedrooms. Just how I liked them: not too large, saving most of the square footage for the common rooms. There were no fancy touches like a garden bath or a sitting area in the master bedroom—but that was even better, because it made the house within a price range that two people starting a business could afford.

As if reading my mind, the realtor added, “You’re not going to find a better deal for miles.”

Really, this house was all about the location. It was a mere two blocks from Lake Austin, a short walk to the popular restaurants that lined the lake, and only two miles from downtown. It was in the coveted Tarrytown neighborhood, the lush, tree-lined part of town where hipsters went to live when they got promoted and had kids. Though most of the houses were expensive, none were ostentatious; Tarrytown denizens invested tens of thousands of dollars renovating their bungalows to make them more charming. The architecture was simple, the houses tucked away in the embrace of cedar elm and oak trees.

I stepped onto the back porch, where the air was heavy with the scent of lake water. Boats whined in the background, on their way to dock at the funky Hula Hut restaurant down the street. All along the block, native plants grew wild in carefully planned environmentally friendly yards, buffalo grass and leathery agave plants lining driveways paved with artisan-carved stones.

Our new life appeared before me, each detail vivid: I wake up in the morning and jog down to Mozart’s Cafe for a cup of coffee. Feet propped on a chair, I blow on my drink to cool it as I plan my day. As I stroll home, I wave hello to my neighbors, well-networked executive types who have introduced us to industry paragons who have been critical to the firm’s success. When I get back to the house, Joe has already started breakfast for Donald and his sibling, their ages now seven and five. After a leisurely meal, Joe rides his bike to work, I drop the kids off at their blue-ribbon school, and then I return to the house to plan our upcoming party, to be hosted in our recently refinished back yard. Only two blocks from Lake Austin, the invitations would note.

The vision was so clear, it seemed destined to become a reality.

“Great space, isn’t it?” the realtor said, stepping through the sliding door behind me.

It was more than a great space. This was my new life. Right here, in this house. It would make everything come together. For one thing, we would have our own space. My mother had shown saint-like patience with our living with her, but the strain of trying to raise my child in someone else’s house was starting to wear me down. Also, we’d be back in a central location. I could meet working friends for lunch, we could go to our favorite restaurants on date nights, I’d have someplace to walk with Donald other than a desolate suburban playground. And the parties. We could finally start planning events, get back into the social scene, and get our lives back. We’d be the same Joe and Jen that everyone knew, just with a couple of kids, and living by the lake instead of downtown.

I turned to the realtor. “How do I put in an offer?”

“You’ll just need to follow me to my office. It’s a few blocks away, by the organic market,” she said. She pulled out her phone and began pushing buttons. “I’ll call ahead to have the paperwork ready.”

Okay. I did need to call Joe. Definitely. I could not go around putting in offers on houses without my husband’s knowledge, even if it was a fantastic deal. I briefly went through the scenario of doing it anyway, starting our next phone call with, “Promise me you won’t be mad when you hear what I’m going to tell you. . . ,” but I quickly shut it down.

“Wait,” I told the realtor. “I need to talk to my husband. I’ll just call him real quick to get his okay.”

I pressed the button to call the number. In the moment of silence between when I dialed and the first ring, I thought a dozen times, Please don’t say no, please don’t say no, please don’t say no . . . A coarse ring rattled through the speaker. Please don’t say no, please don’t say no, please don’t say no . . . The receptionist answered. I asked for Joe and was put on hold. Please don’t say no, please don’t say no, please don’t say no . . .

He answered, and I jumped immediately to the purpose of my call. Obviously, we needed more room now, I explained. I recounted my tales of woe of trying to keep Donald from interrupting my mom’s work in her home office, emphasizing that it would be impossible—totally impossible!—to deal with that once I had morning sickness. And, plus, it’s not like a family of four could live in someone else’s house for too long anyway. And then there were the parties, the lifestyle, the location we’d have if we moved here. And had I mentioned the price? Wasn’t it hard to believe that such a good deal could possibly exist? Really, this house would be an investment—we should think of it as making money more than spending money.

After a long silence, and what sounded like a stifled sigh, Joe responded. “Are you serious?”

Donald crawled into the kitchen, and I followed him as an excuse to step away from the realtor. “Are you serious? What, you want to keep living with my mom for the rest of our lives?”

“It doesn’t matter what I want. The firm isn’t there yet financially.”

“You have been working fourteen hours a day, six days a week. How is that not translating into money in our bank account?”

“For one thing, we’re still paying off startup costs. But the Jaworski case has been taking up all my time for weeks, and it’s not like I’m getting paid anything for that—”

“He’s not paying us?” The question came out like a yelp of pain. The realtor looked up, and I moved further into the kitchen.

“I told you that, remember?”

I hadn’t worked on the case since I’d gotten busy with the firm’s website, but I had a vague memory of Joe leaning over my shoulder and telling me to input this client’s hours differently back when I was doing time sheets. “I didn’t realize this was going to take up so much of your time,” I said.

“Obviously, I didn’t either. But I’m knee-deep in it now. Do you want me to tell him to find another lawyer?”

Here’s where I was supposed to say no. This was my cue to tell Joe emphatically to do whatever he needed to do to help that man salvage what was left from the wreckage of his life. And it’s not like I didn’t want to. My heart ached to think of an old man without anyone to defend him, and a part of me wanted to insist that Joe help anyone like this who walked through his door.

But most of our possessions had been stuffed into a discount storage facility for six months. I was trying to raise my child in someone else’s home. And now I had a real chance to get my life back. Over there, just past the kitchen entry, was the place I had picked out for our ebony buffet table. We’d dust off the cream-colored couch and put it just across from the fireplace. There was Joe, unrolling the beige area rug, with Donald giggling and jumping on top of it. Outside was the patio bar we’d added, where the caterers and waitstaff were setting up for our first party. I did care about Mr. Jaworski. Truly. I wished him all the best. But what about my happiness?

“I take your silence as a yes?” Joe said.

My tone was cold when I responded. “I know you don’t want to get off the case.”

“You’re right. I don’t know what would happen to this guy if I didn’t see this thing through.”

I cupped my hand over the phone and lowered my voice. “Okay. So we can’t put in an offer right now. But if you get this case done as fast as possible we could put in a bid later if the house is still available, right?”

“Let’s talk about it. That would still be a huge mortgage to have hanging over our heads.”

With every terse word Joe spoke, my new house disappeared a little more. “But it’s an investment!”

“I haven’t even seen it!”

This conversation wasn’t getting me any closer to my goal, so I wrapped up the call and Joe and I exchanged clipped goodbyes. “Looks like my husband can’t make it over here today,” I called to the realtor as I picked up Donald. “We’re very interested, but may need a few days to get things in order.”

She walked with me to the front door. “Okay, well, I don’t expect this one to stay on the market very long—not at this price.”

Fear shot through my stomach like a cannonball. I had to get started.

After I strapped Donald in and got behind the wheel, I unzipped the back pocket on the inside of my purse. I pulled out an old napkin, smoothed from months of being pressed into the small space. There was Clifford Antone’s number.

I wondered if I should call. If I could get something on the calendar with Clifford, maybe Joe would be excited about it. It would remind him of everything we wanted from our lives, and surely the house wouldn’t be a hard sell after that. I fished my phone from the pocket of my jeans and typed the number into the keypad.

The realtor lingered in the driveway in front of me. We met eyes, and she waved for the third time. Since she seemed to be waiting for me to leave, I tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and put the napkin back in the compartment in my purse. I pulled the car into the driveway to turn around, and when I did I paused to focus on the front door. I wanted that to be the door that I walked through each day. I wanted to enter it with Donald and his younger sibling after picking them up from school, and push it open with my foot when I brought in bags of groceries. I wanted to stand behind it while welcoming guests to our parties, and crowd through it with the whole family when we went down to the lake on summer nights.

I put the car in gear and started down the street, back to the highway that would take me up to my mom’s house. But before I lost sight of the door, it occurred to me that there was nothing that I wanted more than this.