Chapter 9 - The Nursery Repainted
Two weeks later, the nursery at 414 Maple Street looked completely transformed.
The pale yellow walls my mother had spent hours criticizing and trying to "redecorate" to her own tastes were gone. Working over a single weekend with the help of a couple of nurse friends from the hospital who knew how to keep a secret, we had stripped the room down and repainted it in a calming, oceanic palette of soft sage green and crisp white.
The old rectangular dresser—the one my mother had shoved Hannah against six weeks ago—was sitting out on the curb in pieces, hauled out by local trash collectors two days prior. In its place stood a brand-new, modern oak changing table with rounded edges and soft-close drawers, completely untouched by anyone from my side of the family.
I stood in the center of the nursery, assembling a mobile of wooden stars and crescent moons to hang above the crib, when I heard soft footsteps padding down the hallway.
Hannah walked in, wearing a loose maternity dress, her hands resting comfortably on her rounded belly. She was nine months pregnant now, glowing with a quiet, fierce resilience that took my breath away.
She stopped in the doorway, looking around the room, her eyes tracing the sage green walls and the new furniture.
"It smells like fresh paint," she said, smiling softly. "It smells like us."
"It is us," I said, setting the screwdriver down and walking over to her. I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her flush against my chest, careful of the baby between us. "Every inch of this house belongs to you, to me, and to this little one. Nobody else has a key. Nobody else has a vote."
Hannah leaned her head against my chest, her fingers resting over my heart. "Your birthday is coming up next month. Are you going to be okay with... everything?"
"My birthday?" I chuckled softly, kissing the top of her dark hair. "Hannah, for the last ten years, my birthday meant sitting in a stuffy dining room listening to my mother lecture me about how I should have gone to medical school instead of nursing, while my relatives picked apart every choice we made. Do you know what I want to do this year?"
She looked up, her eyes bright with curiosity. "What?"
May you like
"I want to turn off our phones, lock the front door, order takeout pizza, and sit on the living room floor watching old movies with you and our baby," I said. "That sounds like paradise."
Hannah laughed—a rich, genuine, unburdened sound that reached all the way to her eyes. "Deal."
