Free Starter House A Novel by Sonja Condit Page A

chair.
    “What if I’m lonely downstairs?” she said.
    “I’ll check on you.” He touched the mug. “Your tea’s gone cold; you want me to nuke it?”
    “What if I can’t sleep alone?”
    “Lacey, be reasonable. That room’s not big enough for a big bed. And this mattress and the frame—this can be the baby’s bed when he’s bigger. It’s only for a little while. I’ll keep my cell phone on at night and you can call me if you need me.”
    “The tea’s fine,” she said. Call him at night on the cell phone. Maybe she could send him an e-mail. Train Bibbits to carry messages. Eric was still standing there, as if waiting for permission to complete this separation. “Everything’s fine,” she said. He rubbed her shoulder, then carried her books and art supplies into the dining room.
    A wonderful day, she told herself, a perfect day, but she was losing half her house. It hurt unexpectedly; it hurt like a death. Her first real home. Good-bye to the master bedroom, good-bye to the shiny new bathroom, see you in four months, good-bye. Like a child again, she was camping out in a temporary bed. She told herself it was just a makeshift arrangement, but that was what it had always been. Just for a little while, Ella Dane said, and now Lacey could not convince herself she would ever sleep in her own bedroom again. Everything she had wanted and worked for, gone. She wiped the tears from her face and tried to smile.
    The doorbell rang. “That’s the bed,” Eric said. He directed the men to set it up in the empty room, their formal dining room someday, and by the time they were done, it was past nine. Lacey was as tired as if she’d hauled the furniture around the house herself. Ella Dane made a pizza-shaped article consisting largely of potatoes and seaweed. Lacey, not wanting to eat, sat on her new bed and looked at her white walls.
    Eric knocked and entered on the echo of his knock, laughing as he pulled the door shut behind him. “Happy housewarming,” he said as he handed her a greasy paper bag.
    “That’s not a cheeseburger? And onion rings?” She hadn’t even heard him leave the house. “I love you,” she said. He was so sweet; she didn’t tell him so often enough.
    He kissed her just above the right eyebrow. “I’ve got to get some work done.”
    “Can’t you stay?” she said, disappointed.
    “I’m in court all morning, got to get these motions written up. You want to go shopping this weekend, look at baby furniture?”
    No . Lacey’s instant revulsion surprised her. Absolutely no, no crib, no car seat, no highchair, no. She felt as if he’d asked her to hold a tarantula. “It’s too soon,” she said. What if the baby dies . She wouldn’t say it; she shouldn’t have to. He should know. “What if it doesn’t work out,” she said. “Then we’d have all the things and not use them. No.”
    He sat beside her on the bed and pulled her into a one-armed hug, pulled her head down onto his shoulder and stroked her hair. “It would be the worst thing ever. But we’d keep the things. We’d still use them sometime.”
    “No,” Lacey said, implacable. To buy the furniture before the baby was safe was asking for trouble. To use for a later, living child the things that were bought for the dead—no. Ella Dane would understand this fateful feeling; not Eric.
    Eric breathed hard for a moment, and she felt him control his temper: everything he wanted to say to her, things he said when they disagreed, that she was irrational and difficult, her mother’s daughter—his thoughts pressed in on her, but she did not yield. She couldn’t have baby furniture until she was sure she’d have a baby. “Okay,” he said finally. “If that’s what you want.” He hugged her again and pushed her away. “Got to get my work done. Good night.”
    Lacey sat on the bed eating onion rings and reasoning with herself. It was all right if Eric didn’t understand. Later, when the baby came, he’d know she