Maja’s mouth had parted in shock. The comment was so unlike Ted that at first she could only stare. He rarely snapped at her, and when he did, he usually apologized immediately. But last night he’d just stared ahead in stony silence, eyebrows raised as if he was conducting some internal dialogue.

“I’m working too,” she said. “Why is it that whenever one of us has to be flexible, it’s always me? Sometimes I feel like your job is taking over our lives.”

Ted gave a bitter laugh. “I’m doing the best I can. We are leveraged up to the hilt. I have no flexibility. None. I’m sorry, I know it’s not fair to you, but that’s the way it is. If you want the big house, I have to have the big job.”

It was the trump card. Ted didn’t have to remind her that her job still paid hourly, and didn’t offer retirement saving, or a fancy medical plan like Ted’s. He wasn’t wrong—they needed his job. But she needed his help too. She hated feeling like she was begging him for his time. “I thought this was the house that we wanted,” she said. “It’s our house.”

“You’re right,” he said. He sounded tired. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she sighed. “I know you’re stressed about work.” She’d walked over to him, and he’d wrapped her up in his arms. She didn’t want to fight, but she couldn’t shake the sense that she was constantly in the position of asking him for something: time, money, a weekend away, a nice sofa. It wasn’t a good feeling.

Maja tried to marshal the energy and organization that she’d brought to pushing through their building permits, a task that had felt Herculean when she started. One step at a time, she thought, picking up the phone and dialing Belltown Mutual.

She entered her case number when prompted and waited on hold while she flipped through a show catalog that she was proofreading for the gallery. The music finally cut out and Maja heard Cindy, her assigned agent, typing into a computer on her end of the line.

“Okay, Mrs. Jensen, it looks like we have news for you! We’ve scheduled an available adjuster to come out, two weeks from now. I’m sorry about the delay, but as soon as we have the report, we can have the damage schedule drawn up, which will include the damage we’ve documented, as well as the estimates for repair,” Cindy chirped.

“Does that mean I’ll be able to start scheduling my contractor to start work again soon?”