We returned to the Miller property the next morning with work gloves, a toolbox, and two bags of groceries.
Nate carried the toolbox.
I carried the groceries and the folder containing our paperwork.
The keys were in my coat pocket.
I checked twice to make sure they were there.
It seemed foolish, but I had spent so long wanting a place of our own that I was afraid of making some small mistake that would send us back to where we started.
Nate unlocked the front door.
The key stuck halfway.
He worked it gently until the lock turned.
The door opened with a long creak.
Inside, the house smelled of dust, damp wood, and something old that I couldn't identify.
I stood in the doorway.
There was no furniture.
No curtains.
No sound except the wind moving around the loose window frames.
We had bought a house.
Now we had to make it livable.
Nate set down the toolbox and walked through the front room.
I followed him.
The wallpaper had yellowed with age.
In one corner, it had separated from the wall and curled inward.
The floorboards were scratched, and a dark stain spread beneath one window.
I touched the wall with my fingertips.
Dust came away on my skin.
"Well," I said.
Nate looked at me.
"Well."
We both laughed.
It was the kind of laugh people make when a problem is too large to understand all at once.
We started with the windows.
Nate checked the frames while I opened the curtains that had been left behind.
They were brittle and faded.
One tore when I pulled it aside.
I folded the damaged fabric and put it in a pile near the door.
We would throw it away later.
The kitchen was worse than I had hoped.
The cabinets were old, and several doors hung crookedly.
The sink was stained.
A layer of grime covered the counter.
I opened a drawer and found a handful of rusty screws, a broken spoon, and a yellowed receipt.
I emptied it into a box.
There was no point keeping someone else's forgotten things.
By lunchtime, we had filled two garbage bags.
We ate sandwiches on the floor near the front window.
Nate sat with his back against the wall.
I sat opposite him, balancing my plate on my knees.
Sunlight fell across the dusty boards between us.
"Still think we made the right decision?" I asked.
He took a bite and considered the question.
"Ask me after we've fixed the porch."
I smiled.
That afternoon, he began examining the electrical system.
I cleaned the kitchen cabinets and scrubbed the sink.
We worked until our backs hurt.
When we finally left, the house looked almost exactly as it had when we arrived.
Only the garbage bags were different.
I had expected progress to look bigger.
Instead, it seemed to disappear beneath all the work waiting for us.
The following evening, Nate returned with supplies.
He had made a list of the things he could handle himself and the work that would need professional attention.
We could not afford to take chances with electrical wiring.
He knew how to repair machinery, but he wasn't willing to pretend every job was the same.
We would get the wiring done safely, even if it meant delaying another part of the renovation.
That decision cost money we had hoped to spend elsewhere.
We accepted it.
The house had to be safe before it could be comfortable.
While Nate worked through the rooms, I started removing the old wallpaper.
The first strip came away easily.
The next one tore into small pieces.
Beneath it was another layer, then another.
I stood on a short ladder, pulling at the edges until the paper loosened.
Dust fell into my hair.
My hands became sticky from the old paste.
By the end of the evening, my thumbs were sore.
The next day, the skin near my nails cracked.
I wrapped the worst places with small bandages and kept going.
There were moments when I wondered why we had chosen such a difficult house.
We could have waited.
We could have saved longer.
We could have looked for something smaller, something with fewer obvious problems.
But there had been no guarantee that another property would appear at a price we could afford.
The Miller house had given us a chance.
We had taken it.
Now we had to live with the decision.
Our routine changed.
I worked at the hospital during the week.
On Friday and Saturday nights, I still waited tables at the truck stop.
Sunday mornings remained busy.
Nate worked his regular shifts, then went to the property whenever he could.
Some evenings, I drove there after work and found him kneeling beside an open toolbox.
Other nights, he was outside clearing weeds or measuring a piece of wood for the porch.
We began keeping a notebook of expenses.
Every purchase went into it.
Paint.
Brushes.
Cleaning supplies.
Fasteners.
Materials.
The amounts looked small until we added them together.
I stopped buying coffee on the way to work.
Nate stopped taking the occasional afternoon off to fish.
We brought our own lunches.
We cooked at home.
Eggs remained a regular part of our meals.
Sometimes I joked that I would never look at another egg after the house was finished.
Nate said he would believe me when I stopped putting them on the grocery list.
We kept working.
A few weeks passed.
Then another.
The front room became cleaner.
The kitchen cabinets stopped smelling quite so strongly of dust.
We removed the damaged curtains and opened the windows when the weather allowed.
The house began to look less abandoned.
It still needed plenty of work.
But I could finally imagine living there.
One Saturday, I stood in the kitchen and looked toward the back door.
The morning light fell across the floor.
I pictured a table in the room.
I pictured Nate coming in after work, washing his hands at the sink, and sitting down for dinner without having to drive home to a rented house afterward.
It was a simple picture.
That was why it mattered.
I had spent years thinking a home would mean something impressive.
A beautiful kitchen.
A large yard.
Rooms that looked finished.
Instead, I wanted a place where I could leave a cup beside the sink and know nobody would tell me to move it.
I wanted to paint a wall without asking permission.
I wanted to repair something because it belonged to us.
I wanted ordinary things.
And for the first time, those things seemed within reach.
Nate noticed me standing there.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Where the table should go."
He looked around the room.
"Near the window?"
I nodded.
"That would be nice."
He smiled and returned to his work.
We had not finished the house.
We had barely begun.
But I could see the future more clearly than I had before.
Then the bills arrived.
The first unexpected expense was a repair we could not postpone.
The next was a problem with one of the windows.
Neither was catastrophic.
Together, they reminded us that buying the property had been only the beginning.
We adjusted the budget.
We delayed some improvements.
We worked more hours.
And we kept going.
At night, when we returned to our rented house, I sometimes looked at the bluebird card in the drawer.
I no longer took it out.
I no longer needed to read the message.
I remembered every word.
"You two can manage."
Perhaps Judy had meant it as praise.
Perhaps she believed she was describing something good about us.
But I had begun to understand that being capable did not mean we never needed help.
It only meant we had learned to keep going when help did not come.
And the Miller property was teaching us exactly how much that could demand.
Click here to continue reading: PART 6: The Wallpaper Came Down One Strip at a Time, While the Money We Had Saved Slowly Turned Into Floors, Wiring, and a Working Home
Three Envelopes Held Twenty Thousand Dollars Each, While the Card Beneath My Plate Told Me Everything About My Place in the Family
Part 5 of 13
