He finished it.
I stand quickly and go to the room. I push the door open, and sure enough, a yellow and white sunflower room surrounds me. There is a rocking chair and a crib and a changing table and all the things we hadn’t finished putting together. Clothes are neatly folded in the dresser and even more clothes are hung in the closet. A tree shelf on the far wall is filled with books, and the fluffy white bunny rug on the floor is the perfect final touch.
It’s just like the room my mother and I talked about. He said he’d do it for me, but I didn’t think he remembered.
“Wow.”
I look back to discover that Ms. Coraline remained at the table.
“Come look at this,” I say.
“Wow is right,” she says as she steps into the room.
“Do you know what this means?” I ask her.
“What’s that?”
“That I’m not going anywhere, and Mark isn’t going anywhere without me. I will find a way to fix this.”
Mark
After a full morning at the gym and an afternoon to myself, my thoughts on what I’m going to next haven’t cleared.
How can Sydney and I make this work?
In any other kind of relationship, I imagine this is the point where a couple goes their separate ways, but Sydney and I aren’t just any couple.
We are having a baby.
A baby who will be here in less than a month, and we have so many decisions to make before that happens.
I pull into the driveway and turn off my truck. I don’t want to go in there and deal with this, but not talking is what got us in this mess in the first place.
No matter what happens between her and me, I need her to trust me, and I need to know I can trust her. I’m the father of her child, and we need trust each other.
I slide out of the truck, taking my time and enjoying the spring night air when the front door opens. Ms. Coraline steps out.
“You should have been home hours ago,” she snaps, pulling her coat tight as she passes me.
“How long have you been here?” I saw her when I left this morning.
“It doesn’t matter. Of all the things I had hoped we would discuss when I returned, this wasn’t one of them.”
She doesn’t stop walking. A clear sign she doesn’t plan on carrying on this conversation.
I don’t know what Sydney told her, and it really doesn’t matter. We can talk this through with whoever we want. It’s probably best if we have someone there for us, but if we don’t talk it out together, what good will it do either of us?
I’ll have to patch things up with Ms. Coraline another day.
The house is quiet when I go inside, but right away I know someone has been cooking. I hear the oven door pop closed, and I head into the kitchen.
Sydney has been busy baking a lasagna, and it looks like she just pulled some garlic bread out.
“Hi.” She spins around. “Oh gosh, when I heard the door, I thought it was Ms. Coraline leaving. I wasn’t expecting you to be home this early.”
“Yeah, we crossed paths on my way in.”
“Oh.’’ She studies me for a moment and then points to the food. “I cooked. It’s my first lasagna, so if you hate it, don’t tell me.”
