Chapter 60 – “A Nursery of Half-Plans”

They hadn't even signed the lease yet, and already Eliza was scrutinizing the floorboards.

"This one creaks," she said, stepping back and forth on a sliver of oak by the bay window.

Will grinned from where he stood in the kitchen, eyeing the open-concept layout and mentally mapping the baby-proofing. "It's a house, Eliza. Wood creaks. It means it's real."

"It means it's imperfect," she said flatly.

"Like us," he offered.

She shot him a look—one part warning, one part reluctant smile.

The real estate agent lingered awkwardly by the front door, clearly unsure whether this was a couple about to say yes or implode. Will walked over to Eliza, rested a hand on her back.

"Do you like it?"

She was quiet. Then, "I think I could."

He nodded. That was more than enough.

—

They moved in two weeks later.

The walls were still bare, the furniture mismatched, and their boxes hadn't made it past the entryway, but somehow, the house felt like a breath they'd both been holding finally let go.

It wasn't massive—nothing like Eliza's penthouse with its skyline views and polished silence. But there were trees outside the bedroom window and a little patch of yard that might someday hold a swing set. The rooms echoed when they laughed. They were building something. Slowly. Unevenly. Together.

That afternoon, they stood in the smallest room of the house, the one with the pale northern light and the peeling wallpaper covered in faded zoo animals.

"This will be it," Will said quietly, placing a hand over her stomach. "The nursery."

Eliza exhaled. "We'll have to strip everything."

"Yeah, but we keep the giraffe. He's seen things."

She laughed, and it cracked something inside her. Not the polished, closed-lipped kind of amusement she'd offered the world for years—but real, unguarded, unarmored.

They got to work that weekend, painting swatches across the walls with cautious hope and aggressive indecision.

"Why are there five versions of sage and they all look the same?" Eliza muttered, holding up two cards that could've been identical twins.

"Because the home décor industry is a scam," Will replied from the floor, surrounded by Allen wrenches and half-assembled crib pieces. "We're being held hostage by adjectives."

"'Whispering Thyme'? Really?"

He looked up. "Let's name the baby that."

She didn't even dignify it with a glare.

Eventually, she picked a pale green called Serenity Rooted. It felt symbolic. Maybe it was.

But by then, she wasn't really fighting the wall colors anymore.

"I keep thinking…" she said that night, curled on their hand-me-down couch, feet tucked under her and Will's arm wrapped around her shoulders, "what if I mess this up?"

He turned toward her.

"Eliza."

"I'm serious. I've spent my whole life being sharp. Strategic. I don't know how to be soft. I don't know how to be… a mother."

He kissed her forehead, then her temple, lingering there a moment.

"You'll be the kind of mother only you could be. Fierce. Brilliant. Terrified. And so fucking loved."

She blinked rapidly, then gave a small laugh that sounded like surrender. "That's not exactly reassuring."

"It's honest," he said. "And we'll figure it out. One botched diaper and mismatched paint can at a time."

She glanced around the messy living room, at the stacked boxes and baby books, at the nightlight she wouldn't admit she'd chosen herself.

A home in progress.

Like them.

And it was enough.