THE CAT WAS a green-eyed gray tabby with one notched ear and a kink in the end of his tail. The other barn cats were friendly enough when approached, but otherwise held themselves apart. This guy actively sought out Lauren’s company, ever since that first afternoon when he’d curled up with her in the porch swing. He’d already gotten into the habit of waiting for her outside Vincent’s door, and whenever she came out, he greeted her with his high chirruping meow. He did the Contented Cat Face—sleepy eyes, relaxed whiskers, forward ears—better than any cat Lauren had ever seen. He was doing it now, curled up on her lap with his paws tucked under him, purring with all his might.
She was sitting in the bunkhouse on a camp chair she’d taken from Vincent’s garage. Maybe she could stay in this moment forever. It was a good moment, with nothing awful happening. Everything was balanced just right—the late-morning sunshine slanting through the bunkhouse’s broken windows, the soft weight of the cat, the velvety roundness of his head against her hand. If she held very still, and kept her mind quiet—
“Knock, knock.”
Dalia’s voice, and the sound of her knuckles rapping against the empty doorframe, made Lauren jump. The cat scrambled away.
“Sorry,” Dalia said. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay. It’s your property. I guess I was a little preoccupied.”
“I guess you were.” Dalia walked slowly inside, looking as beautiful and radiant as any woman in an advanced state of pregnancy had any right to look, and then some. “What’s going on in here?”
Lauren stood, held out her arms and put on a smile. “Wonderful things. I was just about to come get you and have you take a look.”
This was a lie. She’d wanted to get as much done on her own as possible before springing her idea on Dalia, but Dalia was here now, and Lauren would have to make as good a case as she could.
Lauren saw her take in the sight. There hadn’t been time to do much. Evidently the bunkhouse was being used as a storeroom for out-of-repair equipment and odd items. It was hard to tell what was salvageable and what was not, and, anyway, it wasn’t Lauren’s stuff, but she’d bagged all the obvious trash and sorted other things into groups: tools, machinery, ancient horse tack, old chains. It looked more organized that way, more under control, like there was a plan. She’d also found a surprising number of houseware-type things: chipped enamel basins, a blue-and-white pitcher and a dozen or so empty bottles, some of them surprisingly beautiful.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Lauren said. “‘Who gave you permission to rearrange my property, Lauren?’ But I just kept looking at it, and it had so much potential beyond holding old feed sacks and cultivators and mud-dauber nests. So I thought, why not just dig in? And maybe you don’t want this place for any purpose other than deep storage and multifamily housing for raccoons. But it could be so much more! It’s structurally sound and good-sized, and close to the main house without being too close. You could turn it into an office, or a guest house, or even an Airbnb for some extra income. It’s basically a big long rectangle with wide porches down the sides. Most of the windows are broken, and some of the frames are rotten, and you could replace them with new double-glazed ones if you wanted to go that route, which would certainly be a lot easier, not to mention more energy-efficient, but personally I think the aesthetics of the old ones justify a little fuss. I did find one whole frame that’s in decent shape, and it could be used as a template for new ones, since all the window openings are the same size. So! Say we empty the whole house, see what we’re really dealing with, figure out which walls are load-bearing, all that. Then we sketch it out, try a few different configurations, see what suggests itself. And we determine what exactly you want from the place, and make a plan.”
“Lauren—”
“I know what you’re going to say! Renovations don’t just happen. They cost money, and they take time. Where is the labor going to come from? Well! You know how I like to winter over in places with mild climates, and concentrate on work for hire, and get maintenance done on Vincent. What if this year, I winter here, at La Escarpa, and do the work on the bunkhouse in exchange for utilities and internet and bathroom privileges and generally taking up space?”
“Lauren—”
Lauren picked up the pace. She had to get it all out before Dalia spoke. The expression on Dalia’s face was not encouraging. She didn’t look mad, or dismissive exactly, but neither did she look like someone excited about the prospect of a major renovation project.
“Or if you don’t want the bunkhouse messed with, I could do other work for you. Clerical stuff. Online stuff. Ranch stuff! You know I can make myself handy. Just tell me what you need done and I’ll—”
“Lauren!”
Lauren swallowed. “Yes?”
“Are you pregnant?”
All the air seemed to go out of the room.
“How did you know?”
“I’ve seen the supplements you’re taking. You aren’t drinking alcohol. Yesterday you teared up over an insurance commercial. And today you’re talking about wintering over and turning my bunkhouse into a habitation fit for humans.”
Lauren lowered herself into the camp chair with a sigh. “You always were the smart one.”
“I just pay attention.”
Dalia turned a five-gallon bucket upside down and sat on it.
“Is it from that weekend when Evan came back?” she asked gently.
“Wow, seriously? You even figured out the date of conception? How could you possibly know that?”
“The timing’s right. It was nine weeks ago that you called and told me about him coming back and leaving again. I remember because it was during the Perseids meteor shower. And if you conceived then, you would have started suspecting you might be pregnant around mid-to-late September, but knowing you, you would have put off taking a test another three to four weeks. Right about the time you showed up here.”
This was, in fact, exactly what had happened. It was a little unnerving to be seen through so completely.
“Who says it was Evan, though?” Lauren asked. “It could have been just some random guy.”
Dalia smiled. “No, it couldn’t.”
Lauren sighed. No, it couldn’t.
“Did you tell Tony?”
Dalia shook her head.
“Please don’t tell him. Not yet.”
“Why? What are you planning to—”
“I don’t know. I mean, I’m going to have it. But I’m not ready to talk about it. It doesn’t seem real yet.”
“It seemed real enough for you to start taking supplements.”
“I’m not a logical person, okay? Not even at my best. I just—I don’t know. You’re the first person I’ve told...and I didn’t even tell you. You figured it out with your terrifying deductive abilities.”
“You didn’t even tell your dad?”
“I especially didn’t tell my dad. I know how he is. He’ll just say to come home.”
“Maybe that’s not a bad idea.”
“I’m not doing it. I’ve paid my way for this long—I’m not giving up now.”
She couldn’t go home as a washout and a failure. She wouldn’t.
“Have you seen a doctor?”
“Were you listening? I said you’re the only person who knows. The only person on the face of the earth.”
“You’re going to have to get prenatal care sooner or later, and it might as well be sooner. There are good ob-gyns in the area, and midwives if you want to go that route.”
Lauren pressed her hands to her head. “I don’t know what that means! I don’t know what route I should go. It’s too much to think about, and I’m not ready for it, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg—a whomping big iceberg of things I don’t know, and don’t even know that I don’t know.”
“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I just want you to take care of yourself. But you don’t have to do everything at once. Just one thing at a time. And the first thing is, yes, you can stay here for the winter, and as long as you need to. We’ll figure out something for internet. I know you need a lot of bandwidth for the work you do. I’ll talk to our provider and find out what the next package up is, and what it costs, and we’ll go from there.”
“Will Tony be okay with that?”
“Yes, we’ve already talked about it.”
“What? I thought you said he didn’t know!”
“He doesn’t know about you being pregnant. But he knows about Evan, or at least the basics. He thought you might want to crash here awhile and figure out what to do next. He wanted me to tell you to consider this your home.”
Lauren’s eyes swam. “He’s such a good guy.”
“Yeah, he is.”
“Evan is such a jerk.”
It was true, and Lauren had been thinking it for a long time, but she’d never said it out loud before. Now it was like she’d opened a dam. She cried hard—big, messy sobs. Dalia put an arm around her and patted her back softly. The gray cat came back and twined himself around Lauren’s ankles.
When the tears started to subside, Dalia pulled a tissue packet out of her pocket. The thoughtfulness and foresight of this made Lauren laugh. Dalia really was the best.
She got all brisk now.
“I’ll talk to Tony and we’ll...not make a plan, not yet, but brainstorm ideas for the bunkhouse. That Airbnb thing might be good, but I don’t know. I don’t think I’d like strangers coming and going on the property. A rent house might be fine. Or maybe we’ll end up using it as it was originally intended, as a bunkhouse. Not for a whole crew, but for a hired man. We’re getting to a point where we need the help.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you like the idea! It’ll be fun. There are so many different directions we could go with the remodel.”
“Yeah, but there are plenty of things that’ll have to be done regardless, so we’ll start with those. It’s surprising how much better it looks already, just being cleaned up a bit. It’s not in as bad of shape as I thought it was.”
One thing at a time, Dalia had said. And that was one thing done. But how many other things were lined up in the future, crowding each other, clamoring for Lauren’s attention? And how would she ever figure out what to do about all of them?