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Previous Chapter: Happy and Sad
You pick up the pieces. You move on.
Danny wanted to sell the house. He’d become completely fixated on the idea that moving would solve everything. It didn’t occur to him that moving because of pressure from the city was caving in just as much as acquiescing to their demands in the first place. It felt more in his control.
Although Isla didn’t think for a second that moving would solve anything and told him so, on one level she didn’t entirely mind the idea. They didn’t live in their present house because either one of them loved the place. It was a modest white ranch, about 50 years old, with a very small personal garage (Isla often decided it was easier to just park outside) between it and the shop. It was cheaply constructed, lacked character, had shag carpet and hollow core doors. In fact, if she thought about it, Isla kind of hated everything about their house, only she hadn’t indulged that feeling much since there hadn’t been much choice in the matter. She hadn’t bothered to change anything about it because, really, it would be a boring, tacky house no matter what she did. Anyway, she had other interests in life. Still, choosing a house together might be just what they needed. Something to bring them together in their identity as a couple.
Danny wanted two things in a house: that it be affordable, and that it have a large garage or possibly a barn, if it were an older house. It was surprisingly difficult to find these two features in one house. When he asked Isla what she was looking for, she said things like, “I’ll know it when I see it” and “I have to be inside it so I know how it feels before I can tell.” It was no use trying to pin her down to something more specific.
Their realtor, Paul, didn’t know any better, so he kept pressing for details—how many bathrooms, how many bedrooms, what style?
“We can share a bathroom and a bedroom. An office might be nice,” Isla said.
“So, a three-bedroom?” Paul asked.
“Three?” Isla said.
“Oh, I thought you might want room to start a family. I know you’re relative newlyweds.”
Isla’s eyes went wide while Danny studied her face a little sadly.
“Or, you know, you might want a guest bedroom,” Paul floundered.
Soothed, Isla said, “Oh . . . yeah, ok, I guess. Wouldn’t hurt. Two-bedroom, three-bedroom, we’ll look at them all.”
“I don’t want to waste people’s time, though,” Paul clarified. “It’s not easy getting a house ready to show.”
“Well, that’s just what they’ll have to do if they want to sell it. We’ll have to do it, too.” Isla shrugged.
When they’d seen half a dozen houses, something changed at home. It made Isla uneasy because she couldn’t explain it. Circumstances hadn’t changed. Danny was happy, and he looked at her with smiling eyes, kissing her when she came home. She wished this was something she could participate in, but she was guarded and sometimes a little short with him. It was like the tensions of the last few months hadn’t happened, yet they had, and Isla couldn’t shrug them off. He didn’t seem to notice.
One night, he was particularly excited. “Let’s go out tomorrow night,” he suggested.
“On a Tuesday?” Isla couldn’t remember the last time they’d been out. When they were dating, it was usually at her initiation, and she hadn’t felt inclined for some time.
“Why not?” Danny smiled shyly, almost . . . proudly? He didn’t hold her gaze, but glanced at her every few moments, in that manner she’d been such a sucker for when they were dating.
“What’s up?” His cheer was infectious; Isla smiled a little, eyeing him warily.
“You’re my wife! I’d like to take you out!” His manner was bizarrely like a hopeful child.
“Um . . . ok. Where?”
“The tavern?”
Isla smiled at his idea of a big night out. “Ok. Should I come home first?”
“You can meet me, or . . . yes. You’d better meet me there right after work!”
“It’s a plan, Stan.” Danny’s exuberance had made her cautiously cheerful.
That night, Danny gallantly opened her door and offered her his arm. She hadn’t seen this kind of confidence in him before. The tension she’d always felt in him was almost gone, and he smiled more easily than ever. They sat by the window and ordered their favorites: steak tips for him, macaroni and cheese for her, the Tuesday special that she was rarely there for. As the waitress walked away, Isla cocked an eyebrow at him and said, “So. What’s up?”
“Why should anything be up?” But his delight was effervescent as he put a large envelope on the table. “I got you a surprise!”
“Oh?” Isla looked sideways at the envelope.
“Open it!” He stared at the envelope like he didn’t want to miss something.
“Ok, ok . . .” Isla slid a thick stack of papers out onto the table; on top were the listing details of a house they had looked at a few weeks ago. She flipped though ten or twelve forms with Danny’s signature on them, and then looked at him tiredly. “I’m sorry, I’ve been reviewing paperwork all day. It’s kind of a blur. What is all this?”
“The house you loved! I bought it!” He looked at her face intently, expecting to see joy.
Isla knew this could not be true, because this was a major life decision of the sort that married couples make together. So, she didn’t react.
“Isla, I bought the house! I bought it for you!” Love and pride flowed from him, checking the sharp response that she thought appropriate. That didn’t mean she could respond the way he wanted her to, though.
“Bought it? You bought it?” Her voice was cautious, confused.
“Yes! Didn’t you say it was your dream house?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“It was in our price range.”
“Yes, if you don’t count the repairs . . .”
“Eh, I’ll do them myself, it won’t be bad.” He smiled broadly and put his hands on the table, sitting up straight with an air like he owned the place.
“You’ll have time for that?” There was a slight diminishment in his enthusiasm.
“I’ll make time. I’m going to take care of you. Don’t worry.” Isla would normally have bristled at the idea of being taken care of, but she was entirely too confused, she had entirely too many questions for that right now.
“What about our house? What about the shop? How long do we have to move?” Danny again began smiling like his face would crack open.
“Sold! The sales both closed today!” Isla stood up to go. “What are you doing!?”
“I . . . I don’t know. Surely something must need to be done . . .”
“Sit down!” Danny laughed.
“Don’t we need to pack or something?” Knowing a move was coming, they had been packing some things. Isla now realized that Danny had packed most of his things. She thought that was just because he’d had time on his hands with the garage on hold, but now she understood.
“I have another surprise.”
“Oh.” Isla wasn’t sure she could take another one.
“I hired movers. We’re moved! In an hour or so, I’ll be carrying you over the threshold.”
She didn’t say anything. She was stupefied into silence. She tried to comprehend that she’d never be going back to the house where she’d woken up that morning.
Danny went for a long, long time without noticing her mood. In between bites of steak, he told her about the movers and about the paperwork and about the mortgage and about how hard it had been to keep it a surprise. Isla nodded a lot. He never talked this much. Some door had opened that he normally kept locked, and she didn’t know why.
She didn’t hear everything he said, lost in muddled thought, but she heard him when his tone changed and he said with a sudden heart-breaking vulnerability, “Isla . . . aren’t you happy?”
Isla was good—if it was good—at compartmentalizing her feelings. She did love the house. She knew that long after the newness of the house wore off, an ache would remain because Danny had not included her in this decision. She wasn’t happy. But she tapped the part of her that loved the house, and she tapped the part of her that loved Danny, and she smiled. Not deeply, but Danny couldn’t measure the depth of a smile. His emotional literacy wasn’t that advanced. “I love that house,” she said, thus avoiding telling a lie.
He smiled and nodded and laughed a little bit. “I know!”
And she did let him carry her over the threshold. The posture of submission that she couldn’t take out of love, she couldn’t resist in resignation. She let him hold her in the doorway, at the foot of the curvaceous staircase, boxes piled in the shadows around them. She let him kiss her deeply, showing his love with his hands, and she let him lead her upstairs, let him please her.
At breakfast, she said, “But what about the shop?”
“That’s what’s so great about this place—that great garage underneath, and the huge workshop. There’s even a shower down there! I won’t ever have to track my mess upstairs.” And he smacked her bottom so hard that she dropped the toast back in the toaster.
He might as well have punched her in the gut. No, no, no. She tried to gain a foothold on a slippery slope, but there was nothing there. A bomb was about to explode, and she’d have to detonate it. This wasn’t a new beginning, this was the same old dead end. She wished to delay it. She wished to look around the new house, imagining where she’d put everything and what she’d do with it; she wished to hurry home from work and start figuring out what the movers had done with everything. Still, he would eventually say, “But why didn’t you tell me sooner?” So she had to tell him now.
“Danny . . . you can’t open a shop here.” She wasn’t brusque, as was her wont. She thought he’d been extremely foolish, and normally she would have said so. All she could see now was a great big sadness, and she didn’t want to bring it on him. Why did happiness have to be so very fragile?
“What do you mean?” He was still smiling with delight.
“Your business license has never had anything to do with location; we’ve talked about that. And there’s absolutely no way zoning will allow it. This is a residential area and a historical area on top of that. They won’t tolerate it.”
“What? You’re kidding me.” He seemed dismissive when he should have been concerned. Although she didn’t want Danny to be devastated, she thought he should be as his best-laid plans came crashing down. She didn’t take his failure to react as a good sign.
“I’m not kidding you. I’m so sorry.” She moved to put her arms around him, put her cheek against his, and she felt his body hardening as all the tension he normally moved with returned. Tightly wound now, he shook her off and went to the sink with his dishes. His footsteps sounded heavier. “We’ll figure it out,” she assured him. “This whole thing isn’t what I would have done, but we’ll make it work.” She forced a smile.
His eyes suddenly drilled her so hard that they hurt physically. “This whole thing? Not what you would have done? Make it work? Make it work!”
“Yes, I mean, I would have liked to have been in on this decision, and I would have liked to have talked about the finances of it and, you know, the plan, and I could have told you it was no good for a car shop, and we’d have kept looking. But you know . . . it’s done now. So, we’ll have to figure it out. You’ve kind of left us no choice.” Even Danny could detect a completely false or even bitter smile.
“I can’t give my wife a gift without consulting her first? Why do you have to be in control of everything? I’m not up to making decisions for myself?”
“It’s kind of a big decision.”
“I thought you’d love it.”
“I’d love it if we could ever be on the same page, could ever do things together. We’re married!”
“Yeah. I noticed.” Danny left. He opened the door to the basement garage and he closed it behind himself a little too hard.
Next Chapter: Well. . .Congratulations
Copyright 2025 Jennie Robertson