I stared at the page.
Daniel nodded toward the house.
“Your landlord was planning to sell your rental. Renee came to me asking for work because she wanted to help buy you a house before you were forced out.”
My throat tightened.
“She asked me to teach her construction,” he continued. “She worked afternoons, weekends, every spare hour she had. Instead of paying her weekly, we rolled her share into the property.”
“The seventy thousand?”
“Her share of the renovation profit.”
I looked at Renee.
Her eyes were already wet.
“I thought surprising you with a home would fix everything,” she whispered. “Instead, I almost destroyed the only home that truly mattered.”
That was when I noticed her flat stomach.
“The pregnancy?”
Renee’s shoulders sank.
“There never was one.”
She unzipped her bag, pulled out the foam pregnancy bump she had hidden, and held it between us.
“I should have told you long before it went this far.”
Everything clicked into place.
Her refusal whenever I offered to go to the clinic.
Her exhaustion.
The strange schedule.
She had not wanted me to discover the surprise she was building.
I walked inside without answering.
The house was beautiful, but not in the perfect way magazine houses are beautiful.
It was better than that.
It carried her.
The kitchen cabinets had tiny brush marks in the corners because Renee always rushed the hidden places. One backyard fence post leaned slightly, just like every shelf she had ever hung before I fixed it.
Behind the pantry door, sealed beneath clear paint, were two small blue handprints.
Eli’s.
“He helped one afternoon,” she said behind me. “Daniel’s wife watched him. I told him it was a secret project for Daddy.”
I closed my eyes.
Every appointment.
Every bruise.
Every night I thanked her.
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