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“I know that part.”
Her fingers stop on the edge of the laptop.
“For a long time I thought I was saving for the deposit. Then closing costs. Repairs. Furniture. All the things you have to pay for before you can put your own key in your own door.”
I wait. She looks at the balance instead of me.
“Eventually the house stopped being the important part.”
“What was?”
“The account.
“As long as there was money in it, I knew I had somewhere to go if I needed one. I had not chosen the place. But I could.”
I look around my kitchen. Her coffee is in the cabinet, Tova’s school calendar is on the refrigerator, and somebody has left a hair tie beside the sink that nobody in this house will admit to. For weeks I’ve been watching their things spread through these rooms and counting it as evidence.
They live here. Win.
“You spent six years building an exit.”
“Yes.”
“And now part of it is buying Tova a plane ticket.”
Her jaw tightens. “Yes.”
I could tell her she doesn’t need an exit anymore. That would be the stupidest thing I’ve said this month, and I’ve been married recently enough that the field is competitive.
“That sucks.”
“Profound.”
“I have layers.”
That gets one breath of laughter out of her. I take it.
“You want me to put the ticket on my card?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
She looks at me. I wait.
“You are not going to argue?”
“No.”
“You hate this.”
“Yeah.”
“Then why are you sitting there?”
“Because you said no.”
She turns back to the laptop. “Just like that?”
