The Home He Built

The interview took forty minutes.

Clara came out carrying a folder and a happiness she couldn't disguise.

Damian saw it through the windshield.

He had taken calls for half an hour without moving the car, watching people come and go through the glass doors. Now she hurried down the steps toward him, and for one foolish second he thought her smile was entirely for him.

She got in.

"They want me."

He looked at the folder.

"That was quick."

"Professor Whitmore had already shown them my work. There's a six-month trial period. Survey assistance, research, basic drafting. I'd start after the holidays."

She fastened her seat belt with hands that wouldn't settle.

"The conservation team is doing a courthouse restoration up north. There may be fieldwork later. He said if I work hard—"

"How much?"

She told him.

"A year?"

"Yes. With project bonuses if—"

"I'll give you that."

She looked at him.

He pulled into traffic.

"Stay here. Work with Owen. Work on the house. Whatever you want."

"I want this."

"You want to spend the week in another city for less than we spend on the hotel kitchen."

"I want to do the work I trained for."

His hands tightened on the wheel.

Clara took a breath and tried again.

"You know how long I've been trying."

"I know you married me nine months ago."

"Those things aren't opposed to each other."

"They are if you're never home."

Outside, rain had begun to gather in dark drops on the windshield.

He turned the wipers on too fast.

"We can arrange it," she said.

"You arranged it already."

She looked down at the folder.

The criticism was close enough to the truth to sting.

"I went to an interview."

"And said yes."

"Because I want the job."

He gave a short laugh.

"I heard you."

She watched him take a cigarette from the packet in the console. He caught it between his lips, lit it, then opened the window a fraction.

Cold air blew across her knees.

"You said you wouldn't get in the way of my work."

"I didn't know I was agreeing to a part-time wife."

She turned toward the window.

For the rest of the drive, he could see only the pale edge of her cheek.

***

At the hotel, Clara reached for the door before he had fully stopped.

He caught her wrist.

"Wait."

"For what?"

"For me to park without you throwing yourself into traffic."

She pulled free.

He parked, got out, and came around the car.

She was already walking toward the entrance.

"Clara."

She didn't stop.

He caught up in three strides, turned her toward him, and bent to kiss her.

She pushed against his chest.

He stopped, but the hurt in his face became anger before she could name it.

"We're going to talk."

"We were talking. You weren't listening."

She went inside.

That night he stayed at the club.

The next, too.

***

Workmen finished the courtyard at Bennett Row while the couple communicated through Owen.

A pipe needed moving. Ask Clara.

The antique light fitting was available again. Ask Damian.

Was the third bedroom a guest room or storage? Ask the person who had apparently forgotten he had a wife.

Owen carried that last question with considerable editing.

The house had been stripped back to sound timber and rebuilt carefully around it. New plumbing. New wiring. Reinforced floors. Insulation where winter had once come through the walls.

Damian insisted on a second exit from the study into the rear passage.

Clara objected to the first proposed door because it cut through original paneling. The carpenter found another place. Damian approved the cost without asking.

The room beside the sitting room became her studio.

He had the window enlarged to catch the light. A drafting table with an adjustable top arrived from Westbridge, together with lamps, shelving, and a chair she hadn't known she wanted until she sat in it.

The carpenter asked Clara to inspect a cupboard before he fixed the last hinge.

"Your husband said you'd want this shelf lower."

She measured it with her hand. He was right.

"He said that?"

"Watched you reaching for books at the hotel. Didn't want you using a chair."

She looked at the smooth new edge.

In the kitchen, a square of old blue tile had been saved behind the new shelves. Clara had asked for that almost absently, remembering her mother's hand against it while she washed dishes. She hadn't expected anyone to notice.

Now it was there, repaired instead of replaced.

She ran one finger along the crack.

"He came round yesterday," the carpenter said. "Checked every room. Twice, mostly."

"He likes checking things."

"He said if you found something wrong, not to wait for his permission. Just fix it."

She smiled at that, reluctantly.

Outside, two men were carrying gravel into the yard, taking care not to strike the old gateposts. The house was becoming hers in ways she had never thought to request.

She took three photographs on her phone. Opened Damian's messages. Closed them again.

Then she sent the photographs to Owen with a request to thank the crew. It was cowardly, she knew. She did it anyway.

She saw it on a Thursday afternoon and stood in the doorway for several seconds.

Vince shifted beside her.

"Wrong color?"

"No."

"He can change it."

"It's perfect."

Vince smiled with relief.

Clara ran a hand over the smooth edge of the table.

That evening she almost called her husband.

Then she remembered part-time wife and put the phone down.

***

"You're being stupid," Owen told Damian.

It was a dangerous opening. He used it sparingly.

Damian looked up from a stack of invoices.

"Make it worth my time."

"She's going to Westbridge. You can either help make it work or spend the next year saying you told her so."

"You think that's what I want?"

"I think you don't know how to say what you want."

Damian threw down his pen.

"I want to come home and find my wife."

Owen waited.

The room grew quiet.

"Out there," Damian said at last, "something happens, who does she call? I know how things work here. I can do something. There, I'm a man on a phone three hours away."

"She isn't going to another planet."

"You always this comforting?"

"Only when asked."

Damian looked at the photograph of the courtyard on his desk.

There were no roses yet. Just the new supports waiting for spring.

"Did she like the studio?"

"Very much."

He picked up the pen again.

"Good."

***

The day before New Year's Eve, Clara let the furniture crew into the house.

For the first time, every room looked as though somebody might live in it.

She walked upstairs, then back down, opening cupboards for no reason. She wanted to call Damian and complain that he'd chosen curtain tracks without her, then tell him the curtains looked beautiful.

Before she decided, the front door opened.

"Clara?"

Shelby came in carrying a handbag that had once been Lorraine's.

She stopped in the sitting room.

"Well."

Clara put down the box she was unpacking.

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard it was finished."

Shelby walked to the new sofa and pressed a hand against the leather.

"This must have cost a fortune."

Clara said nothing.

Her cousin looked around.

"I thought I'd take the room we used to share. Unless you've turned it into something."

"You aren't moving in."

Shelby laughed lightly.

"I'm not asking for the whole house."

"No."

"Clara, there are more rooms than you know what to do with."

"There aren't any for you."

Shelby looked at her properly then.

The smile disappeared.

"You lived in our house for sixteen years."

Clara touched the edge of the box.

"And now I'm living in mine."