I borrowed my boyfriend’s truck to move boxes, promising to fill the tank. I tapped the navigation history to find the nearest gas station and FROZE. The ‘Recent Destinations’ list didn’t show his office or the gym. It showed fifty-two trips in the last month to a single address. The location was on the south side of the city, forty minutes away from anywhere we ever went.

My thumb hovered over the screen, trembling just enough to smudge the glass. I knew that zip code. Everyone in town knew that zip code. It wasn’t an area where you went for a casual coffee or a late-night gym session. It was an area of boarded-up windows, stray dogs, and cash-only motels.

I looked down at my boots, caked in dried mud from the morning’s install. The cab of the truck smelled like old sawdust, stale fast food, and the heavy, sweet scent of the hydraulic fluid Robert used for his tools. I had three Japanese maples in the bed of the truck waiting to be planted at a client’s house in the morning, but suddenly, the trees didn’t matter.

Fifty-two trips.

That wasn’t a mistake. That wasn’t a detour. That was a ritual.

I felt a cold flush of sweat prickle under my heavy canvas work jacket. Robert had been coming home late every single night for weeks. He told me the contracting business was booming, that he was bidding on new framing jobs, that he was just “too wired” to come home and had to hit the gym to burn off energy. I believed him because I wanted to believe him. I believed him because Robert was the kind of guy who cried during dog food commercials.

But numbers don’t lie.

I started the engine. The big diesel rumbling beneath me usually felt comforting, a reminder of the work we both did with our hands, but today it felt like the growl of a beast hiding a secret. I punched the mystery address into the GPS and pulled out into traffic.

You know that specific feeling when your intuition screams so loud it drowns out the radio? It’s not just a thought in your head. It’s a physical weight in your gut, like you swallowed a stone that’s slowly dragging you down to the bottom of a river. Your hands get cold, your vision gets tunnel-narrow, and every red light feels like a personal insult from the universe trying to keep you from the truth.

I drove fast. Too fast.

The scenery changed from the manicured lawns of our suburb to the cracked pavement and industrial gray of the south side. The houses here were tired, sagging under the weight of decades of neglect. I kept waiting for the GPS to direct me to a motel. I was ready for it. I had the speech rehearsed in my head—the screaming, the crying, the righteous fury.

But the GPS didn’t lead me to a motel.

“Destination on your right,” the robotic voice announced.

I slammed on the brakes. The truck skidded slightly on the loose gravel that passed for a shoulder here. I stared out the passenger window.

It was a house. Or, at least, it had been a house once.

The structure was a Victorian nightmare. The siding was gray and peeling like dead skin. The porch listed dangerously to the left, propped up by cinder blocks that looked like they might give way if a squirrel landed on the railing. The windows were either boarded up with plywood or staring out like jagged, black eyes.

I killed the engine. The silence of the street was heavy.

I looked for a car. A unfamiliar sedan, maybe a red convertible—something that screamed “mistress.” There was nothing in the driveway but weeds that came up to my knees. Then I saw it. Tucked way back in the overgrown side yard, barely visible behind a massive, dying oak tree, was Robert’s white work van.

He was here.

I grabbed the tire iron from behind the seat. I don’t know why. I wasn’t going to hit anyone. I think I just needed to hold something cold and hard, something that felt real while my world was dissolving into smoke. I stepped out of the truck and slammed the door.

The air smelled like wet rot and burning plastic. I walked toward the side of the house, my boots crunching on broken glass and gravel. The weeds snagged at my jeans, little burrs hooking into the denim like they were trying to hold me back.

I reached the side gate. It was a tall chain-link fence, warped and rusted, held shut by a loop of thick wire.

I gripped the cold metal of the fence mesh. The rust was rough and flaky, crumbling instantly under my fingers into a fine, orange powder that coated my skin. It felt like touching a scab that was ready to fall off.

I pulled on the gate. It screamed—a high-pitched, metal-on-metal shriek that echoed off the siding of the house. The hinges were seized tight, welded together by years of oxidation and neglect. I could feel the vibration of the resistance traveling up my arms, shaking my shoulders.

I gritted my teeth and shoved harder. I put my shoulder into the frame, digging my boots into the mud for leverage. The metal groaned, a deep, reluctant sound, and finally gave way just enough for me to slip through. The friction burned the shoulder of my jacket, but I didn’t care.

I was in the backyard. It was a jungle of overgrown briars and piles of trash.

I crept toward the back door. It was open, hanging off one hinge. I moved silently, stepping on patches of moss to muffle my boots. I reached the doorframe and peered into the darkness of the kitchen.

It was gutted. The floor was stripped down to the subfloor. The cabinets were gone.

“Dammit,” a voice whispered.

It was Robert.

I followed the sound. I walked through the skeleton of the kitchen into what must have been the living room. Sunlight filtered in through the cracks in the boarded-up windows, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.

Robert was sitting on an overturned joint-compound bucket in the center of the room. He wasn’t with a woman. He wasn’t on the phone. He was holding a crumpled piece of paper in his hands, and his head was bowed so low his chin touched his chest.

He looked smaller than I had ever seen him. His shoulders, usually broad and strong from lifting lumber, were slumped. He was covered in drywall dust, looking like a ghost of himself.

— Robert?

He jumped so hard he knocked the bucket over. He scrambled backward, slipping on the sawdust-covered floor, his eyes wide and terrified.

— Jennifer! Oh my god. What… how did you find me?

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat that made my vision blur at the edges. The adrenaline that had fueled my drive here suddenly vanished, leaving me feeling hollow and shaky. I dropped the tire iron. It hit the wood floor with a dull thud.

I looked at the walls. Half the drywall was ripped out, exposing the ancient electrical wiring. There was a pile of black moldy insulation in the corner. The smell of mildew was overpowering.

This wasn’t an affair. This was a disaster.

— You’ve been coming here fifty-two times in a month. I thought you were cheating on me. I thought you had a girlfriend.

— No! No, Jen, never. I would never.

— Then what is this? What are we standing in right now?

I felt the blood drain from my face. My knees buckled, and I had to lean against a stud to keep from falling. The physical relief of him not cheating was instantly replaced by a cold, creeping nausea.

I remembered the last month. The way he avoided looking at our bank account. The way he intercepted the mail before I could get to it. The way he suggested we skip our anniversary dinner because he was “tired.” He wasn’t tired. He was broke.

We were saving for a wedding. We were saving for a down payment on a clean, safe condo near the park. I looked around at the rotting ceiling and the water stains running down the walls like tears. He had done something stupid. Something massive and stupid.

— I bought it.

— You what?

— I bought the house. It was a foreclosure. The bank just wanted to dump it. It was so cheap, Jen. It was the price of a used car.

— You bought a crack house? Without telling me?

— I wanted to flip it! I wanted… I wanted to fix it up, sell it, and surprise you with the money. I wanted to pay for the wedding and the honeymoon and everything. I wanted to be the hero.

— The hero? Robert, look around! There is no roof!

— I know! I know it looks bad. But the bones are good. I thought I could do the work myself at night. I thought I could knock it out in a month.

— A month?

— But then the plumbing was shot. And the wiring is not up to code. And I found termites in the sill plate. Jen, I’m in over my head. I’ve spent every dime of our savings on materials, and I haven’t even made a dent.

He sank back down onto the floor, putting his face in his dust-covered hands. He began to weep—ugly, choking sobs that echoed in the empty shell of the room.

— I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I ruined everything.

I stared at him. He looked like a little boy who had broken a vase and tried to glue it back together before his mom got home.

You know that moment when you look at the person you love and realize they are a complete idiot? It’s a strange mix of fury and tenderness. You want to shake them until their teeth rattle, but you also want to wrap them in a blanket and feed them soup. It’s the realization that they aren’t the stoic protector you thought they were. They are just a person, messy and flawed, trying to do something good in the worst possible way.

I looked at the rotting floorboards. I looked at the termites. I looked at the man sobbing in the dust.

I walked over to him. I knelt down in the dirt and debris. The knees of my jeans soaked up the dampness of the floor instantly.

— Robert. Look at me.

He looked up. His face was streaked with gray mud where his tears had mixed with the drywall dust.

— Is the foundation cracked?

— What?

— The foundation. The concrete slab. Is it cracked?

— No. No, the foundation is solid. That’s the only thing that’s okay.

— Okay. And the roof trusses? Are they rotted?

— No. Just the shingles and the sheathing. The structure is okay.

— Okay.

I took a deep breath. I could smell the mold, but underneath that, I could smell the earth outside. I was a landscaper. I knew how to clear rot. I knew how to prune back the dead weight so something new could grow.

— Get up.

— Jen, I can’t fix it. I’m broke.

— I didn’t ask if you were broke. I said get up. You’re a carpenter. I’m a landscape architect. We have four hands.

— You… you aren’t leaving me?

— I should. This is the stupidest thing anyone has ever done. You spent our wedding money on a termite farm.

— I know.

— But we own it now. And I’m not going to let a pile of wood beat us.

I stood up and offered him my hand. He took it. His grip was rough and calloused, just like mine.

— We need a dumpster. A big one.

— I can’t afford a dumpster.

— I know a guy who owes me a favor for a retaining wall I built. We get the dumpster tomorrow. Tonight, we start tearing out this wet insulation.

We worked until three in the morning.

We didn’t talk much. The only sounds were the ripping of wet fiberglass and the thud of rotting wood hitting the floor. It was miserable work. The air was thick with dust that coated our throats and stung our eyes. My muscles screamed in protest, aching from the heavy lifting I had already done that day.

At one point, we found a family of raccoons living in the attic. At another, Robert put his foot through a weak spot in the floor and we spent twenty minutes laughing hysterically, fueled by exhaustion and hysteria, while I pulled him out.

We didn’t make a profit on that house.

It took us six months of working every night and every weekend. We missed movies. We missed parties. We ate pizza on the floor of that house more times than I can count. We fought over tile choices and screamed at each other over plumbing fixtures.

But we didn’t lose our shirts. We sold it to a young couple for exactly enough to break even and pay back the savings account.

We didn’t get the big fancy wedding Robert wanted to buy me. We got married at the courthouse on a Tuesday afternoon. Afterward, we went to a diner and had burgers. Robert fell asleep in the booth before the check came.

I drove us home in the truck. I looked at the GPS screen, blank and dark. I reached over and took his hand, his fingers still stained with paint and primer.

He was an idiot. But he was my builder. And I knew that no matter what kind of mess we got into, we could dig our way out of it.

Together.

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