I, Richard - Elizabeth George [31]
On the rare occasion that a house on Napier Lane came up for sale, the entire neighborhood held its breath to see who the buyer would be. If it was someone with money, the purchased house might join the ranks of those painted, glistening sisters who were raising the standard of living one domicile at a time. And if it was someone with easy access to that money and a profligate nature to boot, chances were that the renovation of the property in question might even occur quickly. For it had been the case that a family now and then had bought a house on Napier Lane with restoration and renovation in mind, only to discover upon embarking on the job how tedious and costly it actually was. So more than once, someone began the Augean project that's known as Restoring a Historic Property, but within six months admitted defeat and raised the for sale sign of surrender without getting even within shouting distance of completion.
Such was the situation at 1420. Its prior inhabitants had managed to get its exterior painted and its front and back yards cleared of the weeds and debris that tend to collect upon a property when its owners aren't hypervigilant, but that was the extent of it. The old house sat like Miss Havisham fifty years after the wedding that didn't happen: dressed to the nines externally but a ruin inside and languishing in a barren landscape of disappointed dreams. Literally everyone within sight of 1420 was anxious to have someone take on the house and set it to rights.
Except Willow McKenna, that is. Willow, who lived next door, just wanted good neighbors. At thirty-four and trying to get pregnant with her third of what would ultimately be—some years hence—seven children, Willow hoped merely for a family who shared her values. These were simple enough: a man and a woman committed to their marriage who were loving parents to an assortment of moderately well behaved children. Race, color, creed, national origin, political affiliation, automotive inclination, taste in interior decoration… none of that mattered. She was just hopeful that whoever bought 1420 would be a positive addition to what was, in her case, a blessed life. A solid family represented that, one in which the dad went out to a white collar if not distinguished job, the mom remained at home and saw to the needs of her children, and the children themselves were imaginative but obedient, with evident respect for their elders, happy, and carrying no infectious diseases. The number of children didn't matter. The more the better, as far as Willow was concerned.
Having grown up with no relations of her own but always clinging to the futile hope that one set of foster parents or another would actually want to adopt her, Willow had long made family her priority. When she'd married Scott McKenna, whom she'd known since her sophomore year in high school, Willow had set about making for herself what fate and a mother who'd abandoned her in a grocery store had long denied her. Jasmine came first. Max followed two years later. If all went according to plan, Cooper or Blythe would arrive next. And her own life, which had lately felt dark, cold, and cavernous with Max's entry into kindergarten, would once more stretch and fill and bustle, relieving the nagging press of anxiety that she'd been experiencing for the last three months.
“You could go to work, Will,” her husband Scott had counseled. “Part-time, I mean. If you'd like, that is. No need financially and you'd want to be here when the kids get home from school anyway.”
But a job wasn't what Willow wanted. She wanted the void filled in a way only another baby could fill it.
That was where her inclinations lay: toward family and babies and not toward neighborhoods that might or might not be designated Perfect