Nate had reluctantly agreed. He was the math and science man. If you hit him hard with numbers and facts, backed up your argument on paper in a scientific way, he’d acquiesce. And yes, in the many months leading up to this morning—in fact, even last night at the motel—Nate had studied countless books on building: Homebuilding for Everyone, Designing and Building a House Your Way, The Owner-Builder’s Guide to Creating the Home of Your Dreams. He’d taken an owner-builder weekend workshop and volunteered a few weekends for Habitat for Humanity, coming home those evenings buzzing with the new high that building gave him, talking nonstop about the walls he’d helped frame, the electrical work they’d roughed in. “It’s the most satisfying work I’ve ever done,” he’d told her.

But Helen had grown up with a builder father. One of her earliest memories was the summer before first grade, when he brought her to a job site and had her straightening bent nails, teaching her the proper way to hold the hammer, his fingers wrapped around hers. She’d spent weekends and summer vacations pounding nails, hanging drywall, framing doors and windows. She’d helped her father repair the damage from shoddy construction: walls that weren’t plumb with cracked drywall inside, windows improperly installed that had leaked, roofs that were collapsing because of rafters that weren’t strong enough. She knew how hard all this was going to be. For months, Nate had gotten a blissed-out, stupidly contented look whenever he talked about building their dream house. Helen loved his enthusiasm and how he waxed poetic about roof lines and south-facing windows, but still, she got knots in her stomach and gnawed on the inside of her cheeks until she tasted blood.

She reached for Nate’s hand now as the cement poured, gave him a nervous squeeze.

We are meant to be here, she told herself again. I am the one who put all this in motion. This is my dream. It was some shit her therapist back in Connecticut had taught her—how she could shape her own reality by giving herself these affirmations whenever she felt the ground shifting underneath her.

Nate squeezed her hand back—once, twice, three quick bursts, like a code, a secret code that said We’re here; we did it! She could feel the excitement thrumming through him.

Two of the workmen in yellow boots carefully pulled a board over the rough surface of the slab, making it level.

. . .