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Chapter 6
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Hanna sat on the bed, clutching her cell phone and waiting for Caleb to close the door behind him. She had missed four calls from her mom, three of which last night after she had fallen asleep on the couch and had forgotten to empty out her purse.
"Did you know about this?" she approached him offensively the second Caleb had entered the room after her.
"Well, yes," he said then, adding with a soft voice, "But I've only known since yesterday. Your mom texted me when she couldn't reach you on your phone after you had spaced out last night." He walked over to their bed and sat down next to her.
"But... Why?" Hanna said while staring at the wall. "ls she in any financial trouble? And... Where is she going to live?"
"Han, I didn't want you to find out this way, and your mom wanted to tell you the news in person." He reached out with his hand and gently stroked her hair back so that he could see her face. "She was going to come by this morning and talk to you."
"Caleb? Is there anything that you know but don't want to tell me?" Hanna finally turned around and looked at him with sad eyes. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to overreact." She let her head drop down to his shoulder, and he put his arm around her. "l don't even know why I am being so emotional about this. I could have had the house three years ago, but I didn't want it then."
He already knew the answer to the question that had popped up in his mind, but asked her anyway, just to make sure, "You didn't want it?"
"No," she said quietly. "It was shortly after our breakup and I couldn't deal with all the memories that came with it... concerning you... and... us."
Caleb saw his assumptions confirmed and nodded his understanding, all the while continuing to stroke her head in a soothing manner.
"But why didn't she ask me now if I wanted to have it?" Hanna murmured, staring incredulously at their joined hands in her lap.
He looked slightly taken aback. This was not going according to his plan. "What? Are you seriously consider buying it now?"
"Maybe. I don't know yet. I mean… It's been my home for as long as I can remember," she said. "I never thought I'd see the day coming that my mom would move out of my childhood home and sell it to someone else. Just like there was a very long period in my life that I didn't expect us to ever see each other again, not to mention the fact that we would be married one day. But now those two things have become reality and… I just always figured that if my mom actually moved out, we would have been able to make my old house our new home."
His face looked guilt-stricken. "Hanna? Remember that surprise I told you about? That I wanted to show you when we were back at home?"
"Yes?" she asked warily.
"I didn't want to tell you in New York yesterday because there was something that I wanted you to see first."
"Was this it? The 'for sale' sign?" She looked down at the phone in her lap before she brought her head up again in order to face him at long last.
"Uh..., no!" He smirked slightly, "I'm only down for the good surprises. I had no idea Ashley was going to sell it until yesterday."
"Then... what is it?" Her voice sounded tired, and she really didn't know if she wanted to know what it was.
He got up hesitantly and walked over to the closet. After rummaging through the contents of his sock drawer, he found the batch of papers exactly the way he had left it the night before.
Caleb drew in a deep breath and laid the documents in Hanna's lap, prompting her to look up at him in confusion. "What is it?" She started leafing through the heap, creasing her forehead. "A house listing? What does this mean?"
He cleared his throat, steadying his voice in order to break the news, which he hoped she would like just as much as he did. "Um… that software I developed and kept testing with a bunch of my fellow techies in the last couple of weeks…"
"The one that Lucas wanted to buy? What about it?" Hanna cut in.
"Well, he is buying it. And he already paid me an advance...
"Wow! That's so great, Caleb!" she said, feeling her own spirits lifting at last just because of her husband's success.
"Yeah, it is. Lucas has been pretty generous with his offer, and he's willing to pay way more than I thought the software was worth," he paused to wait until their gazes met. "And I thought that we could use the money to make a down payment… for a new house."
"A new house?" Hanna tried to intervene. "But what about the one my mom's selling? I'm pretty sure that we won't get a better offer."
Caleb sat back down again, "Han, I've thought about this for a long time. Well… ever since I sprained my ankle when I accidentally tripped over your new garment rack in the dark that you had knocked over after you couldn't find your fabric swatches. It was then that I knew that we should move out of the loft so that you can use it as your workspace only. You'd finally have more space to store your stuff and have customers over for fittings. You could even turn it into a fashion boutique, if you want."
"Which is why I think we should seriously consider buying my mom's house," Hanna quickly said. "It's so close by; it would be perfect."
"Hanna?" Caleb slid down the edge of the bed and knelt down in front of her. "As much as I love the idea of the two of us moving into the place where we started our relationship…,"He couldn't help but smile at the memory of that moment, "I want us to start our family in a place where we can make whole new memories. No terrified throwbacks thinking of the dollhouse when you walk up to the room that used to be yours, no danger of having a stranger crash in our basement in case we ever get to have a daughter that's as hospitable as you were back then."
They both laughed out loud, and Hanna realized he had a point. "Ok, alright. What did you have in mind? What did you want me to see?"
Caleb handed her one of the papers showing pictures of a wooden blue, Queen Anne style house and watched her face so that he could catch her instant reaction. The crease on her forehead disappeared as her eyes swept over the images of the house's exterior and interiors.
"lt's so pretty." Hanna asked without taking her eyes off the paper, a hint of admiration in her voice filtering through. "But it's not in Rosewood, is it?"
"Um…," Caleb turned the page over and showed her the printout of a map. "This house is in Blue Bell, about a half hour drive from here. So, it's close to your mom, close to the loft, but not too close to the madness that is Rosewood. I don't think I can settle down here forever."
"How did you find it?" Hanna studied the second page of the house's listing, going through the details of what it said about the neighborhood and community.
"I drove by the other day when I took Henry home after his car had broken down." He looked at his watch and got up. "Listen, it's just an idea and I think we should both have a look at it in person. And if you don't want it, we'll just keep looking for something else together," he said, pacing the room.
"I love it," Hanna said, lost in thought, inwardly picturing herself and Caleb sitting on the wraparound verandah with a bassinet between them, staring into the setting sun…
There was a knock on the front door, abruptly ending Hanna's daydream.
"That's probably Ashley. We'll continue this later, alright?" Caleb said as he got up again and left the bedroom in order to let in the expected guest. Hanna put the papers aside and followed him to the living room where she found that Emily was no longer waiting for her. Instead, Hanna lunged into the arms of her mother as soon as she had entered the apartment. "Mom!"
"There's my girl," Ashley Marin greeted her daughter, "Did you have a nice honeymoon? You didn't text or snapchat or facetime anyone or anything at all."
"Yeah… no," Hanna answered, confused about the jauntiness with which her mom had approached her. "Mom? You're selling our house? Why? Where are you going to live?" She shot her most urging questions at her mother.
Ashley smiled weakly and sat them down on the couch while Caleb busied himself in the kitchen, preparing drinks for the two most important women in his life.
"Ok, first of all. I sold the house this morning. And you have Caleb to thank for that… kind of" she said with a wink at her son-in-law, who looked like he had been caught off-guard.
"Wait, what?" Hanna and Caleb said simultaneously, prompting the latter to reiterate his own surprise and adding, "Me?" He picked up the tray with glasses and a pitcher of water and carried it over to the couch table.
The frown on Hanna's forehead reappeared, and Ashley hurried to explain, "A couple of weeks ago, Ted suggested I sell the house and move into one of the suites at the Radley.
"Why would he suggest something like that?" Hanna asked when she wasn't able to keep up with her mom's train of thought.
"I had a scary moment when I was all alone in the house at night, thinking there was a burglar," she explained calmly.
"Why didn't you call me?" Hanna yelled quickly, a tad indignant.
"Well, first off, you didn't have your phone turned on. And secondly, it was during your vacation," Ashley defended her actions. "Anyway, I realized that the house had become too big for me to live there all by myself. So during that night I called Ted to come over and keep me company," she went on, ignoring her daughter's whimsical grin, "and we got into talking… and he… made a proposition. It took me a while to make up my mind about it, but then I remembered Caleb hogging the couch in our basement when he was homeless, and last night, I finally told Ted that I was ready to sell."
She stopped talking, thinking she had said everything that needed to be explained. But then, Ashley Marin saw her daughter exchange glances with Caleb, both silently asking the other if they had a clue as to what she was trying to tell them. Their confused expression caused her to exhale deeply before starting all over again. "Ted proposed selling the house to the church so that they can constitute some sort of a half-way house for troubled teens, or kids who have to be removed from potentially dangerous families, you know... just the kind of accommodation that Caleb-"
"-would have needed back when I was 17 and in this kind of situation," Caleb finished her sentence. Ashley closed her eyes knowingly before turning to see Hanna's reaction.
"Wow, mom!" Hanna said, deeply impressed. "Oh my god, that is such a great idea." She leaned over to hug her mother, desperately trying to hide her face behind her back so she wouldn't catch her breaking out into silent tears… again. Hanna damned her own emotionality, blaming it on premenstrual symptoms and hoping she'd be back to her old self again within the next forty-eight hours.
"It really is," Caleb chimed in, "Let me know if there's anything that I can help you with, Ashley."
"Actually, there is," she started, "Once it's been refurbished and appropriately furnished, they could use your help installing a security system, bringing wifi to all the rooms, stuff like that."
"Uh, sure. Yeah, I can do that." He patted her back as he stood to set the table for their breakfast together.
XX
At nighttime, as the couple lay in bed, relaxing together in post-coital bliss, Caleb wanted to pick up their conversation from after lunch. He and Hanna had sat at their table together, hovering over the printouts of all the house listings within a half-hour radius of Rosewood that he had found for them.
He wanted her to have a say in the decision, too, wanted her to choose the exact place she pictured herself raising her own family. Be it white picket fences or 8-feet tall brick walls. The main point was getting away from Rosewood. And now that they were trying to get pregnant, Caleb felt like settling down somewhere closer to a grandparent than New York could ever be.
Then in the afternoon, Caleb had been called in by his mother-in-law to fix some issues at the Radley and he hadn't been able to return home until after midnight. By then, Hanna had been in bed already, an open magazine on her chest bearing proof of her attempt to wait up for him. Caleb had crawled into bed with her, successfully managing to wake her with a single kiss on her cheek. Then, he had plucked the latest edition of Good Housekeeping from her hands, no questions asked, and tossed it to the floor before dedicating his hands and mouth to his wife in order to make good for being away for so many hours.
"So, you seemed to really like that one house with the wraparound verandah, didn't you?" he asked in the stillness of the night after her breathing had evened out and his own body had stopped trembling. He could feel the slightest hum coming from her mouth reverberate against his skin, telling him she must have heard his question. He waited a few seconds to see if she had anything more to say, but to no avail.
"Did you know that it has that walk-in closet in the master bedroom? You've always wanted one of those, right?" Caleb's pursuit to get her attention back fell through, and her silence left him thinking that maybe she just didn't want to talk about houses and moving at that moment.
"Han?" he tried again one final time, but quickly noticed that his low voice was bound to fail at reaching her, familiar sounds telling him that Hanna had already fallen asleep, draped over his stomach and leaving little room for him to make himself comfortable. "So… Good Housekeeping? Really?" he whispered, knowing fully well that she wouldn't be able to respond to him anymore. "I have to remember reading a copy of that the next time I'm stricken by insomnia.
Caleb closed his eyes, but to his dismay, sleep wouldn't come. Twenty minutes later, he grabbed the iPad from his bedside table and started checking his emails. As the clock was ticking by, he got some work done for his IT business and the impending sell-off to Lucas.
At some point, Hanna stirred in her sleep causing Caleb to startle, too. "Hey! Are you still up?" she asked after opening her eyes and seeing him tap randomly on the iPad.
"Hey you." Caleb turned off the iPad and set it down on his night table. "Fallen asleep on me again?"
Hanna saw his smile even though it was now dark in their bedroom. "Sorry."
"Don't be, it's after two already. Can't have you wide awake and jumping at me every night all night anymore now, can l?" Caleb joked while using his now free hand to tousle her hair.
"Have you been laying like this the whole time?" Hanna commented on his awkward position halfway sitting, halfway laying against a crooked stack of pillows — which had allowed her to get a good one and a half hour of sleep after their lovemaking.
"Well, you hardly gave me any choice. You were down and out within thirty seconds, and I didn't dare waking you up. You were snoring!" Caleb said.
"l was not!" she raised her voice to defend herself.
"Were too!" he said and let out a chortle.
"I never snore," she argued.
"Well, you did just now. It's been keeping me up all night," Caleb exaggerated.
"Really? You haven't been sleeping?" Hanna opted for distraction.
"It's alright. I got some work done and I had to think a few things over anyway," he explained. "Plus, you've been hoarding all of our blanket, I was cold over here."
"Oh," came her surprised reaction. She had fallen asleep earlier with her head resting on his stomach and her arm pressing against his hip bone, and now her limbs were aching from the unusual angle at which she had simply dropped down on Caleb in a state of exhaustion. She repositioned herself next to him, getting comfortable again as she draped the large blanket over both of their bodies. Closing her eyes she tried blocking out the urge to go to the bathroom again. She didn't want to leave the cozy warmth of their bed, thinking that at her state of fatigue, she would pass out on the toilet and she had sworn to herself that her college days were definitely over.
"Thinking what over?" Hanna inquired. "Are you having doubts about us starting-a She didn't get to finish her question as Caleb quickly reassured her, "No, no, that's not it. I'm a hundred percent sure about that. But..." He turned silent while readjusting the pillows in his back before settling down again. He let out a deep sigh. "l know it may be a little early for you. But I feel like this is the right time."
"It's not early for me. Remember, I'm the one who suggested it?" Hanna misunderstood.
"Do you know what we should do tomorrow?" he asked, his thoughts traveling to a different subject than what she had in mind.
"Wake up early, have sex and try to get pregnant?" Hanna's drowsy mind didn't catch up with his change in tack. "And then we sleep in, have breakfast in bed together and go at it again?" Hanna said sleepily. That was all she could think of lately, she had to admit to herself inwardly. But surely he didn't mean to start picking out names or go furniture shopping for their future baby or did he? She was starting to doze off in her comfortable place right by his side, so she almost missed his low laughter that came in response, barely audible to her ears.
"I definitely wouldn't mind doing that, too, but what I meant..." Hanna heard his voice travel to her, sounding like it was coming from a far distance, and she had to try really hard to take in the words through the clouds of her tired mind. "...morning off... listings... house... Blue Bell... pregnant," the words lingered in the air, waiting to be processed by Hanna, and all of a sudden she was wide awake. Something in her brain had clicked but she couldn't make sense of her sudden alertness. "What?" she asked in confusion.
"Never mind, I can tell you in the morning. Go back to sleep," Caleb pressed a light kiss against her forehead before sliding down on the mattress. "I love you."
He sounded a little crestfallen, and now Hanna felt like being unable to sleep in that situation. "No, no, no. Wait! I'm up," Hanna said as she rose from her lying position and sat back against the headboard next to Caleb . She turned on the small lamp standing on her bedside table to support her statement.
In the sudden brightness of the room she saw his almost solemn expression, and for a moment, she wondered what kind of serious issue had been keeping him awake all night besides not being warm and covered by a blanket.
"We should drive up to Blue Bell and take a look at that house... you know, the one with the wraparound verandah that I showed you yesterday," he said without taking his gaze off of her, even though the light behind her head hurt his tired eyes. "We should make use of our time while we're not pregnant yet and really start looking into getting the perfect home for us."
His use of the word 'we' along with 'pregnant' didn't go unnoticed by her. Somehow, it even managed to soften the blow of coming to terms with the fact that very soon, she wouldn't be able to walk through the doors of her childhood home just like that any longer. "Does it come with a backyard at least larger than a towel spread out flat? Because if we'll have a boy one day, he'll be wanting to play soccer with his friends, and you know that I won't have him go anywhere alone without having a watchful eye out on him."
"Hanna, the backyard is just the perfect size. And from what I remember seeing in the pictures, there's even a few trees. I could build a tree house for him one day."
"Or her," Hanna reminded him, snubbed. "I'm pretty sure any kid of ours is going to be the outdoor-sy type. Prepare for some backyard camping, Mister! Oh, and you better ask Toby to build that treehouse with you... or even better... pay him to build it for you. I've seen you drill holes in the walls of our New York apartment and it wasn't a pretty sight," she joked, and Caleb quickly chimed in.
"So, you're in? I can call the realtor and make an appointment for later this afternoon?" he looked at her, full of hope.
"Yeah, sure. Couldn't hurt to take a look at it in person," Hanna cracked a smile. "I mean yeah, let's do this," she quickly added, fueling his excitement. "Was that it? Was that what was going on in your mind all night?" She saw him close his eyes in shame. "Why those doubts?"
"Because I thought with all the changes going on lately, I didn't think you'd be open for taking that step so soon." Caleb felt bad for thinking about her post-traumatic mental state in a situation when it never seemed to be an issue for her.
"What changes? Us getting married? Us agreeing we're ready to start our own family?" Hanna doubted. "Caleb, us getting married is the best thing that ever happened to me. It's something that I had wanted for so long and for a dragging period of time never thought I'd get."
"Actually, I was referring to us leaving Rosewood now… forever." Caleb's hand was now cupping her face. "Everything seems to be changing at the moment whether we want it or not. Your old house will be sold. Spencer is leaving town. Emily and Alison are going to be busy taking care of their kid… Aria and Ezra will soon be married and move someplace else… And Garner has been wanting to buy the loft for some time now. He's probably going to show up on our doorstep with all of his belongings the day we sign the escrow papers." Caleb chuckled.
"Well, maybe you were right in thinking that now might be the perfect time for us to go," Hanna admitted.
"It'll be different this time. If we're going away there will be no safe haven for us to come back to," Caleb said.
"We'll make our own safe haven," Hanna quickly assured him. "And this time I'm dead certain that we're going to make it work."
"Hand me the phone," Caleb said, excitement sounding in his voice. "I'm calling the realtor right now."
"Right now? It's 2:30 in the morning!" Hanna exclaimed, laughing at his impetuousness.
"Shit, you're right." He threw his head back and started laughing with her. "I don't think I can sleep now. I'm too excited."
"Who said anything about going back to sleep?" Hanna turned around and switched off the light behind her.
to be continued…
