What she’d loved most was the history of that first house: the smell of the old wood, the creak of cupboard doors and floorboards, the warbly imperfections in the old single-pane windows.

But she looked down now at what Nate had labeled DREAM HOUSE in neat block handwriting, at the carefully rendered plans done to scale: elevation drawings; close-ups of each wall, the roof, and the stairs; detailed illustrations showing how they would frame the floors and ceilings. There were materials lists calculating how many board feet of lumber they needed, how much insulation, how many bundles of shingles. Everything looked so tidy, so perfect on paper: his plan for her happiness laid out in neat columns.

And back in Connecticut, Nate managed to convince Helen that they could do this. He’d read books, watched videos, attended courses. “And you grew up building,” he’d reminded her. “It’s in your genes.”

But none of that had prepared Helen for how unnerved she’d feel at the familiar screech of the powerful saw. Or the way Nate had looked at her when she’d mismeasured. Like she was a goddamned idiot.

“It’ll get easier,” Nate said now, putting his hand over hers and giving it a squeeze. “I’m not saying it’ll be without its challenges, but we’ve just got to follow the plans. Stick together. We can do this.”

Follow the plans, she thought.

She smiled, took another gulp of wine.

She thought of all the times she and her father had dealt with jobs that didn’t go as planned: weather delays, bad batches of lumber, late deliveries, angles that didn’t work no matter how perfect they’d looked on paper. She worried that Nate seemed to live in a world where unpredictable things didn’t happen.

Her eyes moved to the little bundle with the tooth and nail, resting on the kitchen counter beside the sink now, next to the dirty dishes.

Nate rolled up the plans for their dream house.

“Tomorrow will be a better day,” she said.

Say it and make it true.

CHAPTER 6

Olive

MAY 19, 2015

Daddy’s truck was in the driveway. He was home an hour early.

Had the school gotten in touch with him? Told him Olive hadn’t shown up yet again? Had he come home to look for her?

Olive felt panic seeping in, a little dribble at first, then a steady stream as she got closer to the house.