“Say the word.”
She twists her lips. She’s either thinking of a clever comeback or deciding if she wants to take me up on the offer.
I take a step toward her, and she breaks into a shy giggle and shoos me with a wave of her hands.
“Go. Go get your cabinets or whatever,” she says and walks toward the living room.
I load the cabinets into the garage and find Abby on the patio, which feels like the wrong word. The ground is a natural stone, cool under bare feet, especially in the shade, which is abundant. Tall pillars hold up the patio roof, which matches the red curved tile of the rest of the house. The outdoor space is shaped like a C, centered around the infinity pool that overlooks the stretch of private beach behind their home. Pool chairs will eventually line the edges of the pool, but the wood-fired pizza oven and grill have already been installed.
“God, imagine living here for part of the year. Or for a month at a time, whenever you wanted. And this is probably their second home,” Abby says, leaning her forearms onto the deck.
“Third,” I say.
“What!”
I nod.
“Did you do their other one?” she asks.
“I’ve done them all,” I confirm.
“You must like working for them.”
“I like money,” I say.
“I like this pool,” she says. “Is it treated?”
“It is. I wouldn’t normally have it done so early, but as you can imagine, there’s a lot of demand and not enough people to meet it, so we had to honor the date we scheduled them. Been sitting here kinda useless.”
“You’re never tempted to get in after a long day of work?”
“Oh, I’m tempted. But I have to set a good example and blah blah blah. Did you go upstairs yet? I want to show you the beach, but if you haven’t seen the rest of the house, we should do that first.”
“Lead the way,” she says.
I lead her back into the house, up the stairs, and Abby walks through each bedroom, peeking into the bathrooms, which are still being worked on, so they can’t be walked through. All the bedrooms are painted a different shade. One is blue, one purple, and another a soft yellow.
When we get to the primary bedroom, she’s rightfully wowed by it. It’s the size of two bedrooms, spacious and open with windows on each sage-green wall letting in the afternoon sun. It’s more than a little warm up here, with no air conditioning on in the house yet, and that dip in the pool is sounding more and more tempting the longer we’re here.
“God, you could fit a whole living room set in this roomanda king-size bed and still have space,” she says.
I shake my head. “Crazy, isn’t it?”
“I just wouldn’t know what to do with all this space.”
“In a bedroom? Or in a house?”
“Both. I mean, it’s just me, so there’s no reason for this much space. Maybe if I had a family, but even then, it’s so much space!”
“Do you still want that? To get married? Have a family?”
“You asked me that already.”
“And your answer was unsatisfactory.”
“I don’t know what else to say. I do want to be married. I want to find my person. I thought I had found him, but I was wrong. I’ve been wrong a few times, it seems. And I do want kids. I’m worried that the clock is ticking for me and all that being thirty-three, but I do want to be a mom.”
She pauses, looking around the room. I wait, because she looks like she might have more to say. Her comment about being wrong a few times hurts my stomach, but she’s right. We did talk about marriage. In college, we talked aboutourmarriage. Our future. She wanted two kids—girls. She wanted to see them wear my hockey jersey and cheer me on in the stands. I wanted a boy so I could teach him to play hockey.
