Patrick takes a deep breath as he looks at the property in front of him. His mind immediately recalls that Chicago afternoon in the sun, sitting on the bench with Teresa. Such a perfect setting, such a perfect day, such a moving moment when she told him she loved him.
This place, with the frolicking ducks and the ripples on the little lake, the dappled sunlight, reminds him of that perfect day, when he felt like a part of a family. When he finally was told he was loved again.
He walks up to the structure. Is it a cabin? No, it looks more like just a shack. For now. But he sees the potential. It could - it will - be a beautiful, solid house. The kind of house its owner would be very proud of, because in it, a family would thrive. His family, in his refuge. His home.
He knows Teresa will not be impressed, not yet. She's made it clear that she's not the rustic cabin type. That's why he'll come up with a plan. Plumbing. Electricity. Mints on the pillow.
He walks around the shack and runs his hand along a wall, noting that it has withstood a decade or two or more. Shiny new things just don't last this long nowadays, he thinks. Things today are often made offshore by children working fifteen-hour days in sweatshops. The lumber comes from a country sacrificing its future for cheap profits. But this shack, in spite of its ramshackle appearance, looks solid, having withstood the heat and humidity of who knows how many Texas summers. Its original construction materials appear first-rate.
He turns to look over at the lake again. Everything about this property says "home" to him. The messy reeds at lake's edge, the overgrown bushes and flowers. He imagines wildflower season, and going out to pick some for Teresa to put on her desk at work, so that even when she's working hard, she'll see the flowers and be reminded of home.
He turns back to the shack, and broaches the stairs. Slowly he tests them, until he stops at the front door. He peers into a window and imagines what could be. This home will be everything they need, comfortable, theirs. He sees himself, holding his teacup in one hand, and a book in the other. He sees Teresa playing with a little child; it's not quiet at all. In this home, children are meant to be heard, not just seen. In this home, when he tells a child she is safe, she is loved and she is wise, especially the safe part will be true.
This shack can definitely become their home.
He remembers his Charlotte's toys. When she turned three, he bought her a dollhouse. He's ashamed now that he sometimes chastised her for not keeping everything precisely arranged and contained within the little house. It was the best money could buy, after all.
This time, if there's a little girl living in their home, he'll carve a dollhouse himself. He knows he'll paint it yellow. He remembers the old men in the carnival, whittling away to pass the time. Pete will know who can show him how.
And each year on her birthday, and each year at Christmas, he'll add pieces to the dollhouse. Even more often than that, come to think of it. And it will be a real dollhouse for a real girl to play with, not a showpiece mini-mansion. One of the pieces will be a dad drinking tea, and there will be a mom doing mom things and coming home from her job and safely putting away her gun. And there would be a dog and maybe kid-figures because there'd be friends, and the kid-figures would be in play-clothes and smiling and look like they'd been moved around. Really played with. And that would be because his little girl would actually play with them, and the furniture would break, or a kid-figure's nose break off, and he'd ask her to take better care of things, but together, they'd fix it.
Just like his teacup. Just like him. She'll learn that broken isn't forever.
Fixing broken things is only fitting, he thinks. In this house, the little girl would be the kind of child who'd want to build and fix her own things. As she gets older, he imagines that she will design an addition, coming to him with plans, and doing research, and showing him careful measurements. And he'll pretend to double-check the measurements, just because he's the dad and that's what he's supposed to do, but she's smart and very thorough, and so he trusts her calculations. And then together they'll add on. And Teresa will come in and give advice, because she, of all the people in his world, knows how to fix broken things. Even if it takes a long, long time. Even if they break more than once.
A feeling of calm infuses Patrick as he knows that he'll turn the shack into a house. His Teresa will help him turn the house into a home. He now understands that he cannot do this alone.
Yes, this shack will become their home. And they'll be part of a family again, Teresa and he, and hopefully more.
He's got to get back to her as soon as possible. He must make a plan, and then tell her. Because he doesn't want this shack to be just a house.
It will be their home.
He thought his blue heaven was on an island in the sea, when all along, it was her.