Page 3 of Wildwood

He looks at me a moment longer, almost perplexed that I’m not incredulous at the size. “Well, that settles it, right?”

My gut contracts. “Settles what?”

“You can’t honestly be considering moving to Vermont, can you? Shit!” The pot has boiled over, sending the gas flames into a flurry of hissing steam.

It’s not until he says these words that it hits me how much I truly want to. It feels like a sign, like some divine intervention. I lose my job in a truly catastrophic way and the universe hands me an estate. One that I loved as a child. One that I can imagine raising a child in.

“Why can’t we consider it?” My chest feels tight. “We could just stay for the year and then decide.”

“We have jobs here. We have a life! We are city people. How the hell do you think we’d take care of two hundred acres?” He’s nearly laughing now, which makes my skin prickle.

“Correction. You have a job,” I say coldly. His face softens, and he tries to jump in, but I continue, “It’s not like we’d have to take care of the whole thing. Most of it is wooded. Plus, we are going to have a baby. Do you really want to raise it in this tiny condo?”

He doesn’t answer but works his jaw slowly, back and forth. “What about your grandmother? Won’t this feel like a betrayal?”

I look at the floor and feel the guilt that’s been nagging at the back of my brain rush forward. He’s right on that point. My grandmother, Mathilde, has not talked to her brother for probably twenty years. Clearly, Ezra had done something unforgivable. My grandmother is one of the most pragmatic people I know. She wouldn’t hold a grudge without a good reason.

Still, maybe it’s because I’ve lost my job and I’m grappling for something familiar, but I feel a strange and desperate need to go to Wildwood. I want to at least see it again. I want to be in a place where, before things fell apart, I had happy memories with my family.

My voice wavers as I speak. “Yeah. You are right. I would feel weird and wrong accepting something from Ezra. But . . . I don’t know. Maybe she’d want me to accept it if she knew it would give us stability. But I can’t ask her that.”

“I know,” he says softly.

He’s staring out the kitchen window now, and I walk over and wrap my arms around him from behind.

“Didn’t you always want to move to Vermont?”

Topher laughs. “Yeah, but for, like, retirement. Not right now. Besides, I’m an emergency medicine doc. I hate to sound crass, but the action is in the city.”

“Not necessarily. There’re lots of emergencies in the country, I’m sure.” I bury my face in his back. “I don’t know, like a freak tractor accident. Leg severed in a hayfield.”

He turns to face me and gives a faint hint of a smile, but then his face darkens again.

“I’ve been working my ass off for years, we’ve had plans for years, and it’s like you just expect me to throw it away.” He crosses his arms over his chest, forcing me to take a step back.

“I don’t expect that. But seriously, they need good doctors everywhere. And besides, maybe a slower-paced life will be good for us. Now that we have the baby coming. And I’m sure I could find remote work.”

Topher looks like he wants to say something, then changes his mind.

“Please.” I don’t like how close to begging I sound. “Can we at least go look at it?”

“Fine.” He picks up his beer and pours the remains down the drain.

“Topher . . .”

But he starts walking out of the room. “It’s fine,” he says, though it sounds anything but fine. “Just set up the appointment.”

I stand there for a few minutes, feeling depleted, the conversation already hazy in my mind. I should have waited to talk to him about it. I should have processed it myself, on a day that wasn’t today. On a day when I could think rationally and could have approached the conversation rationally. Instead, everything had come out in a torrent. The house, the history, the implications.

I walk to the stove and turn off the burner. The pasta has boiled too long and the pot is now full of bloated noodles and cloudy water. Sighing, I pour myself a bowl of cereal, which I eat, staring off into space. It’s funny. I hadn’t thought of Wildwood for probably twenty years. I hadn’t thought of the great rift for almost as many. It shouldn’t matter so much to me anymore, but it suddenly feels like the most important thing in the world. For years, my family slowly shrank. And with each death, a source of information about who I am and where I come from vanished. Wildwood feels like a lifeline. Maybe if I could spend time there, I could learn about my family’s history. I could have stories to tell our baby. This is where I came from. This is who we are. If only I could get Topher to understand that.

* * *

A few hours later, I am lying on the edge of my bed. I put a hand on my belly. It is still pretty flat, but focusing on the baby growing inside brings me a sense of peace. I hear the bedroom door open and feel Topher slide into bed a moment later. His arm wraps around my waist, and he lightly kisses my shoulder.

I take his hand in mine. “I’m sorry about earlier. It’s a huge decision and I don’t want to pressure you into it. I was just caught off guard myself and . . .” I trail off. “It’s probably a ridiculous idea.”

He is quiet for a moment, his thumb tracing circles on my palm.