Nate was at the Miller property when I returned.
He had spent the morning working on the porch.
A hammer lay beside him, and a short stack of boards rested near the steps.
He looked up when I parked.
"How did it go?"
I got out of the car and closed the door.
"She saw the house."
"I gathered that."
I smiled.
"She asked a lot of questions."
"What kind?"
I carried my handbag toward the front door.
"The practical kind."
Nate followed me inside.
"That's Opal."
I put my handbag on the counter.
He waited.
I knew he wanted more than that.
He wanted to know why his grandmother had asked me to keep the visit from his father.
He wanted to know whether she had read the newspaper notice and what she thought of our purchase.
Most of all, he wanted to know whether the conversation would create trouble for us.
I understood.
But I had promised Opal I would not tell Ronald about her visit.
I had not promised to hide every word she had spoken from Nate.
Still, I wanted to be careful.
"She asked why we hadn't told the family about the house," I said.
"What did you tell her?"
"The truth."
He leaned against the counter.
"Which truth?"
I looked at him.
"That we didn't want anyone thinking we were asking for help."
Nate's expression changed.
He looked toward the drawer where we kept our paperwork.
"Did she ask about Easter?"
"Yes."
He was quiet for a moment.
"What did you say?"
"That the card hurt."
Nate looked down.
I had rarely heard him speak about the card directly.
He had never denied being upset.
But he had treated the whole thing as something we could work past if we kept our attention on the future.
I knew he was trying to protect us from bitterness.
I also knew he had carried the disappointment longer than he wanted to admit.
"Did she say anything about Mom and Dad?" he asked.
"Not much."
"Did she tell you why she wanted to see the property?"
"No."
He rubbed his forehead.
"That sounds like her."
I laughed softly.
He looked toward the porch.
"Did she like the house?"
"I think she did."
"You think?"
"She said we had given ourselves plenty of work."
He smiled.
"That's definitely her."
I moved toward him and took his hand.
"She wasn't critical, Nate."
He looked at me.
"She seemed to understand why we wanted to do this ourselves."
He squeezed my fingers.
"Good."
We left the conversation there.
I did not tell him every word Opal had said about people keeping the peace.
I did not repeat her question about whether we would sell the property.
Those words belonged to her until she decided otherwise.
Nate respected that.
He returned to the porch, and I began cleaning the kitchen.
The afternoon passed quietly.
We worked until the light began to fade.
I wiped down the counters.
He secured another board.
We loaded the tools into the car and drove home.
That evening, I cooked eggs and vegetables.
Nate set the table.
We ate without turning on the television.
For once, neither of us seemed in a hurry to finish dinner.
Afterward, he took the bluebird card from the drawer.
I watched him hold it.
He had not looked at it in weeks.
The envelope was slightly bent at one corner.
The card itself remained clean.
He opened it and read the message again.
I stood beside the table.
"You don't have to keep that," I said.
"I know."
He folded it carefully.
"I don't keep it because I want to be angry."
"Then why?"
He considered the question.
"Because I don't want to forget how it felt."
I sat down.
That answer surprised me.
I had thought he kept the card because he could not let go of the disappointment.
Now I wondered whether he was trying to remember something else.
The day we had driven home from Easter, he had asked how much money we had saved.
He had not argued with his parents.
He had not asked for an explanation.
He had simply decided we would find another way.
Perhaps the card reminded him of the moment that decision became real.
Nate returned it to the envelope.
Then he placed it in the drawer beside the keys to the Miller property.
"We don't need to carry it around with us," he said.
I looked at the drawer.
"No."
"But I don't want to pretend it didn't happen."
"Neither do I."
He closed the drawer.
The following week, we returned to our usual schedule.
I worked at the hospital.
Nate handled his regular shifts and took repair jobs when he could.
We spent our free hours at the property.
The porch began to look more stable.
We replaced another section of trim.
I finished stripping the wallpaper in the back room.
My thumbs were still sore, but the worst of the work was done.
Every improvement made the house feel more like a place where we could live.
We began discussing what we would need before moving in.
A proper bed.
A working refrigerator.
A table.
Curtains.
The list was longer than we wanted.
We decided to bring over only what we already owned and could use.
Everything else would wait.
I had learned that a house could swallow money faster than we could earn it.
There was no sense pretending otherwise.
One afternoon, Nate received a call from his father.
I was in the kitchen when he answered.
Ron asked about his work.
Nate answered normally.
They discussed a farm repair job and the weather.
Then Ron asked whether we were planning to visit soon.
Nate glanced at me.
"Maybe next weekend," he said.
I could hear Ron's voice faintly through the phone.
Nate listened.
Then he said goodbye.
When he hung up, I looked at him.
"What did he want?"
"Nothing unusual."
"Did he mention the newspaper?"
"No."
I felt relieved.
For a few more days, we could work without worrying about the family finding out.
But the newspaper notice remained public.
We could not control who read it.
We could not decide what people would think when they learned about the property.
And we could not keep our lives separate from Nate's family forever.
I began to accept that.
If they asked about the house, we would tell them the truth.
We had bought it at auction.
We had saved the money ourselves.
We were repairing it slowly because that was what our finances allowed.
There was nothing shameful about any of that.
The difficult part was accepting that I still wanted them to be proud of us.
I wanted Judy to see the clean front room.
I wanted Ron to look at the repaired porch.
I wanted them to understand how much the house meant to us.
I also wanted to stop needing their approval.
Those feelings did not fit neatly together.
They sat beside one another, just as the keys and the bluebird card sat in the drawer.
One evening, after another long day, I stood in the front room and looked around.
The walls were clean.
The floor was sound beneath my feet.
The window no longer rattled in the wind.
I imagined us living there without thinking about every repair.
I imagined making dinner in the kitchen and sitting at the table while Nate talked about his day.
I imagined the ordinary quiet of a home that belonged to us.
Nate came in behind me.
"Ready to go?"
I nodded.
We locked the door and checked the handle.
Then we drove home.
I was tired, but I felt peaceful.
We were not waiting for the family to approve our choices.
We were making our own lives.
And if Opal had something more to say, I trusted her to say it when she was ready.
Click here to continue reading: PART 11: The Work Was Finally Beginning to Show, but the Newspaper Had Made Our Purchase Public and I Could No Longer Pretend Nobody Would Ask Questions
Three Envelopes Held Twenty Thousand Dollars Each, While the Card Beneath My Plate Told Me Everything About My Place in the Family
Part 10 of 13
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