Chapter_31

Jordan pulled his AirPods out of his ears, then tucked his phone into his pocket. He took a seat next to Rosie on the sofa. “That was Bridey.”

“I know,” Rosie said.

“She told me Dylan approached her after we told them they had to move out. Apparently she and Lark wanted to do a quick deal, no inspection. Bridey was obviously happy with that.” Seeing the look on Rosie’s face, he paused and softened his tone. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Bridey didn’t clue me in at any point. I didn’t know this was happening. I would have stopped it if I had known anything about it.” He put a hand on her knee.

Rosie pushed a tear off her cheek with her palm and shifted her leg away from him.

“I’m really sorry,” he said again. “I know you thought they were your friends.”

“We are friends,” Rosie said and, hearing herself, stared at the floor in embarrassment.

“OK,” Jordan said politely.

“How could your mom do this to me?”

“To you?” Jordan scoffed. “To us!”

“Oh, please. Don’t act like you’re not happy about this.”

“Rosie,” Jordan said. He reached an arm around her, but she made her body stiff. He sighed and pulled away. “This whole—experience has been a nightmare for us. So, yes—while I didn’t want it to happen like this, I’m glad to move on and get our marriage back on track. I would be insane not to want to get away from this circus.”

“This is exactly what I said was going to happen,” Rosie said. She smiled at him in disbelief. “Literally exactly what I said.”

“What are you talking about?”

She stood suddenly and made her way to the kitchen. “I should have listened to myself.” She began unloading the drying rack, stacking the plates loudly in the cupboard. “In the car, on our way to the closing, over the summer.” She turned to him. “I told you I was worried your mom was going to meddle. I’m assuming she has a plan for us to move into her guesthouse while we find something permanent.”

“Well, yeah. But just for a month or two. I think that’s really generous.” He’d followed her into the kitchen.

Rosie laughed and yanked open the silverware drawer. “Why did I let you convince me for even one second that wasn’t going to happen?”

“That’s not what this is about,” Jordan said. “Will you stop aggressively putting spoons away? This is about us. What we want. Not Bridey. She’s just trying to help us.”

“Without consulting us first?”

“I agree that would have been nice,” he said disingenuously. “And I conveyed that to her.”

“I heard your entire phone call. Not once did I hear you convey that to her.” She used air quotes around the word “convey.”

“I don’t remember my exact words. But anyway, she didn’t have to consult with us. She owns the house.”

“Owned.”

“Right.”

“I need to talk to Dylan,” Rosie said, slamming the drawer shut.

“Fine,” Jordan shouted. “Give her my regards!”

Dylan stood on a red stepstool inside the fold, patching holes where a shelf of plants had been. She’d rigged leather harnesses for the plants so that now they hung from the rafters. A fire flared in the woodstove. Snow had caked over the skylights, draping the room in flat, gray light. Through the bedroom door, Rosie could see the edge of the bed, its bright white duvet a perfect cloud.

“Hey, Rosie,” Dylan said, dipping the edge of her knife into a container of spackle.

“So?” Rosie said. “You just bought our home behind our backs? Was that your idea, or Lark’s?”

Slowly, Dylan turned to face her, one knee bent, a foot on the stool’s highest step, the picture of ease. Her exaggerated height gave Rosie the feeling of being a child delivering a tantrum to a gentle authority figure.

“Look,” Dylan said finally. “We’ve wanted this house for a long time—way before it ever showed up last summer on Zillow, or wherever you saw it. And you should probably know...” A drop of spackle landed on her boot.

“What?” Rosie said. “What more could there possibly be to know?”

“We were the other bidder, Rosie.” She used the back of her hand to rub her cheek.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Over the summer. We were the other bidder.”

“You and Lark?”

“All of us. Me, Lark. Hank, Sasha.” She waited a while for Rosie to register the information. Her patience was more infuriating than anything else. She dusted off her work pants. “But we couldn’t top your best bid, and you guys got the house.”

“You...” Rosie started. “I didn’t—I didn’t know that.”

“Why would you?” Dylan said. “I’m only telling you now so that you understand. When you listed this place, we had to rent it.”

“Why? To torment us?”

Dylan considered her. “Yeah, a little. We thought once you learned about all the work the house needed, you’d leave. We thought if the only job you could get in town was slaughtering chickens, you’d leave. We thought if we could get tourists to show up at your door every day, you’d leave. We thought if we drove your husband crazy, you’d leave. But you didn’t leave.”

“Yes,” Rosie hissed, “because we live here. This is our home.” She thought back to the moments she had felt most hated over the previous months—moments that now organized themselves neatly into a scheme to edge them out. “Can you please come down from that fucking stool?”

“It’s a stepladder,” Dylan said.

“I’m leaving.”

“No, sorry, stop,” Dylan said with a sigh. She stepped down from the ladder. “Look, when we saw your Tesla roll through town the day you moved in, that was just more than we could tolerate. We were so close to buying this house, we’d even lined up permits for the renovation. And then you and your husband swoop in, having absolutely no connection to this place, no connection to its history, no experience renovating, nothing.”

“That is what people do,” Rosie said. “They buy a house they have no connection to, and then they form a connection to it, and then they hire a contractor to fix the problems.”

“I’m sorry,” Dylan said. “But I could not sit back and watch you ruin that house with some goofy renovation by a trendy architect. Lise Bakker was an icon. You’d never even heard of her before you saw the house. Am I wrong?” She waited for Rosie to disagree. “We all wanted to own a place together. This place, specifically. A historic queer landmark. Lark got money after her grandfather died, enough for a down payment. Hank was going to get his farm going here, I was going to do the renovations. Lark and I were talking about having a baby, raising it in the house, and it could grow up alongside Sasha’s kid. And Callie got us in the door early, so it was all looking good.” She wiped the putty knife against the side of the container and slid it into her back pocket. “But then, no, this straight, wealthy Brooklyn couple had the idea to move here, thinking they were original, and couldn’t stand to be outbid.”

“You had the idea to move here once, too. How is that any different?”

“Yes,” Dylan agreed. “I moved here years ago, and Lark and I started making things for people. You came here and just expected a new way of life to arrive on a platter. You thought you could just show up, and your life would turn into a Mary Oliver poem. But that’s not how it works, Rosie. You don’t just get new friendships and a new life by paying more than everyone else.”

“That isn’t fair,” Rosie said. “I have been trying. I’ve been working my ass off for months while you’ve been twirling in circles on TikTok.” She thought of the hours she’d spent raking chicken shit and hosing blood, trying to keep her hands warm on the frozen steering wheel of the rattling truck. Now she understood her hard work had come off as desperate and inauthentic, and the humiliation was worse than the sadness. “You know, I really liked you,” she said. “I thought we were friends.”

“I like you too, Rosie,” Dylan said. “I really do. In fact, I fucked up our whole plan because I like you. We were trying to scare you guys off, and I kept interfering—bailing you out with the stick shift and inviting you over for tea... Sasha and Hank were pretty mad at me. But that’s just who I am. I can’t help myself. I like you. Lark does, too. And then Hank and Sasha warmed up to you too, eventually. Hank said there was nothing he could seem to do to make you quit, and Sasha said something about you insisting on unloading kombucha at the store...”

Rosie stared at the floor. “I feel totally betrayed,” she said hollowly. “I feel like I’m inside a horrible dream. You’re taking everything away from me.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I would have liked to talk to you first. But if we didn’t move fast, we would have lost the house a second time. Jordan’s mom would have either listed it herself or hired another broker.” She collapsed the ladder and leaned it against the wall. Then she put a hand on Rosie’s waist. Rosie flinched.

“It’s not you we want to take anything from,” Dylan said gently. “It’s him. But, you know, you’re a package deal. If it were just you, I’d tell you to stay.”

Rosie looked up at her. She could feel the heat of Dylan’s hand through her shirt. A contestant on the reality show had said that being touched by her new fiancé made every part of her body vibrate, and that this vibration was what led her to say yes at the altar. Rosie had rolled her eyes at the time, but now she understood. Her entire body was warm and buzzing. “I don’t believe you mean that,” she said.

“I do mean it. You’re game, you work hard. You’re also kind of funny.” Dylan tucked a strand of Rosie’s hair behind her ear. “I like spending time with you. We all do. What else can I say? I wish you could stay. And, I mean... you could.”

“What?” Rosie said with a short laugh. “No, I can’t.”

“Why not? You’re not actually chained to him.”

“The New York City clerk’s office would disagree.”

Dylan laughed dismissively. “OK. Well, that’s a piece of paper. There’s plenty of space at the house. It seems like you want to stay here. If I were you, I would.”

Rosie looked up at her wide, structured face. Her expression was at once serious and placid. It was clear Dylan had always known exactly who she was—someone who could hatch chicks in her palm and build a solid bed. Obediently, effortlessly, life fell into place around her. And now she was asking Rosie to be a part of it. She felt like a hooked fish thrown back into water. The feeling was intoxicating. Everything she needed was here. Dylan’s hand found hers, and at her touch, an electric current moved through her. Then, as though jerked from the water again, she remembered her bloody nose. “There’s something else,” she said. “I’m—I think it’s possible I’m pregnant.”

Dylan took a step back. “Oh,” she said. “On purpose?”

“Not really. I’ve been using the Queen Anne’s lace.”

“What? That stuff Lark gave you?”

“Yes. Why are you saying it like that?”

“Because that’s—it’s a flower that grows in our backyard. I don’t think it’s meant to be used as your only form of birth control.”

“Lark told me it’s been used for centuries...” She flushed. Dylan looked at her skeptically, then put her hands up in surrender. “I love Lark, but she’s not a doctor. Are you—you’re keeping the baby?”

“I don’t even know for sure that I’m pregnant. It’s too early for a test. But I got a bloody nose.”

“So what?”

“I don’t know. My mom told me that was how she knew she was pregnant with me. And then Lark said the same thing, when you came over for dinner.”

“Right,” Dylan said, drawing out the word. “I remember. I gave you my handkerchief. But you weren’t pregnant then. Were you?”

“No. But it’s different this time. I have this feeling that I’m pregnant. I can’t really explain it—it isn’t even physical, really, just a sense I have. I had this dream that I—and then I got the bloody nose. I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing. But my first feeling was real excitement and possibility. I had this image in my mind of the baby crawling through the woods, dirty knees, a fistful of leaves, or...” She trailed off. “No screens anywhere. And just—freshness and innocence. I’d be relaxed and happy for once and, like... fulfilled. I know it sounds dumb.”

“No,” Dylan said, “it doesn’t. Not to me.”

“Jordan would think so. We got married so fast. He was so sure about me that I believed him. I thought marrying him would open up my life, but... it did the opposite.” A tear skimmed her cheek. “And I think if he really thought about it, he would say the same thing. He’s been totally imprisoned by the house. It’s so clear this move was sort of a joke for him. In his mind, he always knew we would do this for a year, maybe two, before we moved on to what he wanted. And what he wanted—what he still wants—is a checklist. A wife, and a house, and a job, and a kid. He wants to live on the same block as his parents, and have an overwatered lawn, and a car with a talking computer in it.”

“Plenty of people want that.”

“But I don’t,” Rosie said. “And I think he knows that. And if we cut our losses, if we end our marriage... maybe you’re right. Maybe I could stay here. I could keep working for Hank, and I can learn how to work on the house—and I could keep living this way. The swimming, the sunrises—”

“Rosie,” Dylan said. She tilted her face to the ceiling. “You know we don’t do that stuff every day, right?”

“Sometimes is enough. I’d rather raise a baby here, on my own, than...”

“That’s a really hard thing to do.”

“Sasha makes it work,” Rosie said.

“Sasha has us.”

“It’s what my mom did.”

“Your mom raised a baby in a queer polycule in the Hudson Valley?”

“My mom raised me alone. I never met my dad. She is always calling him ‘your father,’ but I don’t see it that way. I don’t feel like I have a father. Just because he happened to cause her pregnancy does not make him my father. I don’t accept that definition. I don’t know him. I have no spiritual or emotional connection to him whatsoever.” She paused and looked at Dylan. “I just had a thought.”

“What?”

“What if...” Rosie said. “What if it’s yours?”

“What?”

“If I’m pregnant. The baby—what if it could be yours?”

“I don’t understand.”

“You have a Swimmrs account. What if you buy Jordan’s sample?”

“What if I buy... his sample...” Dylan repeated the words slowly.

“Then it would belong to you.”

Dylan stared at her.

“If you buy it,” Rosie said, “it’s yours. Don’t you remember what Jordan’s mom said? You buy something, and immediately thereafter it belongs to you.”

Dylan scanned Rosie’s face, looking for the joke.

“Come on,” Rosie said. An engine had begun to rev inside her. “I know a part of you would love to take a swing at him. He told you this was the one thing you couldn’t do. Are you going to let him be right about that? If you order it, it arrives in—what, two hours? Isn’t that what Noguchi said?”

“It arrives, and then...?”

“It arrives, and it’s yours, and it goes inside me. And then—it’s ours. You bought it.”

Dylan blinked at her.

“He’s just the donor,” Rosie said. “And like any other donor, he’s signed away any claim to paternal rights. You buy it, you have the receipt, and the baby is yours.”

“Does Jordan know you might be pregnant?”

“No.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Dylan raked a hand through her hair. “So—let me get this straight. On the off chance you’re pregnant, you want me to buy Jordan’s sperm, claim ownership of it, knock you up, and co-parent the baby with you here.”

“When you say it like that, it sounds crazy.”

“It is crazy.”

“I’m serious.”

Dylan laughed. “Wow.” She shook her head. “I need to talk to everyone else,” she said finally, but Rosie could see the light in her face. She liked the idea. “I know you know this, Rosie, but...”

“What?”

“Well, I’m just not really a monogamous... relationship type. You do know that, right? I love the idea of being a parent, and I bet Lark would love that for me, too. But if we do this—if you stay—maybe we could hook up sometimes, but this can’t be, like, a formal, romantic... thing. I’m not going to be your husband.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Rosie said. “It’s not about just you.”

“All right,” Dylan said, holding her hands up. “OK.”

“You like the idea.”

Dylan’s hands found Rosie’s waist again. She was so close Rosie could smell the woodsmoke in her hair. “I do,” she said. “I just need to talk to everyone.”

“So talk to them,” Rosie said. “Tell them what you want.”