The house’s interior was dated, but Melody could see past the ugly carpet and ’70s wallpaper to its excellent bones and understand what it could be: a home, a place her girls would feel safe and cared for. She loved the tiny leaded glass windows, the breakfast nook, the window seat at the landing of the front stair, the enormous oak in the front yard and the sugar maples in the back turning brilliant shades of orange. She and Walt would take the front bedroom, the one under the eaves. There were two small bedrooms in the back, perfect for Nora and Louisa. She could see birthday parties in the yard under the maples, early morning breakfasts in the paneled dining room; she knew exactly where she’d put the Christmas tree. The Realtor had pulled up a corner of the living room carpet to show Melody the original heart pine floor. She fought for that house in a way she’d never fought for anything before.
“All the mechanicals are going to need an upgrade,” Walt had said, frowning. “Any money we have is going to go behind the walls, in the basement, under the floors—we’ll drain our savings for things you can’t see.”
“That’s okay,” Melody said. And it was. She knew how to do the other stuff, how to strip paint and steam off wallpaper and refinish. What she didn’t know she’d learn. The house would be her project, her job. Alan Greenspan was on her side! And Walt couldn’t argue with the concrete fact of The Nest.
But he did. For weeks. And when she thought they’d waited too long and the property would go to someone else, she’d broken out into head-to-toe hives. She’d been soaking in a tub of colloidal oatmeal, bereft, when he’d come to her to tell her the property—and hefty mortgage—was theirs. She knew his capitulation had finally come down to this: He loved her, he wanted her to be happy.
“Why can’t we move to a town where everyone isn’t a gazillionaire?” Walt would say to her every so often, usually when Melody was in a tizzy about something the girls needed—clothes, after-school activities, summer camp. But she didn’t want to move. They lived in one of the best school districts in the Northeast. Melody had learned where to shop, how to poke around for what the girls needed. She knew how to wait for sales and who would take money off when she said she was buying for twins. She always came up with funds when necessary—for special school trips or instruments so they could take music lessons. When they joined the ski club, she’d paged through old school directories and called parents of twins who’d gone off to college asking if they had any equipment they would be willing to sell and she hit the jackpot, a bored-sounding father who told her if she’d come clean his garage of ski equipment—along with the ice skates and tennis rackets and bikes that his daughters never, ever touched—she could have it all for free.