“How far on your home renovation list is the laundry room project?” he asked. He was in a baggy hoodie and sweats, a typical post-practice outfit.
“Far,” I admitted. “The garage is working fine, it’s not so bad.”
“It’s dangerous!” he said. “And do you know how much laundry a baby goes through?”
I didn’t say anything, because in fact I did not know how much laundry a baby went through. I imagined not a ton, other than spit up rags, and I put near a million of those on my baby registry. I’d been doing laundry like this fine for the last year, and even longer because I used to help grandma with her laundry before she died. Though I could admit that lugging my hampers in the snow was my personal hell in winter.
Even still, the laundry room wasn’t the priority.
“I want to do the bathroom and kitchen first,” I said.
Barry let out a distressed sound. “You haven’t even started the kitchen.”
“Well, I bought the flooring, which counts.” It was in boxes stacked in the garage, and I pointed at them. “I have a couple quotes for the cabinets and counter, I just need to save a little longer.”
And buy a car.
“How much?”
I paused in pouring detergent into the drum and raised an eyebrow at him.
“How much?” he repeated. “How much to finish the bathroom and kitchen renovation?”
I shut the lid of the washer and turned the knob to get the water going.
“A few thousand,” I said, though by a few I actually meant seven, which felt like a long way to go. I didn’t think I’d have the kitchen or the bathroom done before the baby came, which was fine because both rooms were livable. As was the laundry situation. Not ideal, but timelines shifted when I learned that to even deliver the baby, I would have to pay my entire out-of-pocket maximum for my health insurance. It wasn’t going to be cheap.
“Let me pay for it, then,” he said, and I gave a too-dramatic guffaw. Couldn’t help it.
“No.”
“Why not?”
Laundry started, I led us from the garage back to the house. He picked up his duffle and, to my mortification, a pair of underwear that fell in my near slip.
I snatched them from his hand and stuffed them in my coat pocket. “You can’t just pay for my house renovations, it’s my house.”
“And the house of our baby,” he pointed out. “And, like you said, I’m rich.”
“I said that to remind you that you have better options of living than my living room or the tiny room in my basement.”
“Well, I happen to like your short basement. It’s cozy.”
I rolled my eyes.
“You never let me buy things,” he whined and dropped his bag in the spot under the coats that I now think of as his hockey bag spot.
“I let you buy plenty of things. You buy all the groceries.”
“I bet we could get all the renovations done before the baby comes if you were just a little less stubborn.”
“I didn’t ask you to do that.” I shed my coat. “See, this is why I didn’t want to tell you in the first place. I’m not trying to trap you into paying for everything, Barry.”
“But I want to pay for things. That’s the thing, you don’t even give me the choice to help, you would have kept her from me forever if I didn’t get traded.”
I didn’t deny this because we’d already covered that he was exactly right. I didn’t know how many times we were going to have to hash this one out before he forgave me for being imperfect and morally unsound in disclosing the paternity of this baby.
“Can I at least see the plans?” he asked. “You have plans, right?”
