To Build a Home

38 | ...with a Beginning

On the second anniversary of Phil and Theresa's accident, we threw a party. We started by taking the hose to the backyard and muddying the grass with a fresh spray of water. Then we let Noah, almost four years old, run and roll around in his underwear. We even joined him, underwear and all. It was our reminder that it had taken frolicking in the wet grass of the cemetery to show us what mattered. If only we could have realized that our first time in the mud––when Darren had helped me escape the neighbors by turning on the sprinklers––it would have saved us a lot of time.

After our kiss in the cemetery, I went back to New York to return Victor's car and tell him what never really started between us was over. It took some time to find a subletter and pack up my old apartment, so I stayed in the city the rest of the summer. I had two more shows and donated any unsold photos to Cynthia at the gallery simply because they were too big to pack. When I wasn't working or video-chatting with Darren and Noah, slowly getting back to normal, I was taking friends out for drinks to say goodbye. We jokingly referred to it as my farewell tour.

The last thing I did in New York City was take Noah to the Central Park Zoo. We danced with the penguins and then rented a boat and took it out on the water. I told him stories about moving to the city and winters without heat, but he was more interested in feeding the birds. I knew I'd be back to visit, but it was no longer going to be home.

We sold Phil and Theresa's house on Petunia Street and agreed to put the money in a college fund for Noah. We tried living at Darren's house a few doors down, but after a few weeks, it still didn't feel like home, even after we added fresh coats of paint, new furniture, and some decorations. Noah never got used to the change. Every time we pulled the truck into Darren's driveway and we unbuckled Noah from the car seat, he'd run to the old house and scream and cry as we carried him away. So Darren sold it to Sadie and Rita for a decent price and we moved into the cottage.

It was supposed to be temporary. The high price tag and remote location made it more difficult to sell than Darren had anticipated. So we slowly made it our own with Darren's muddy boots all over the house, Noah's books and toys like an obstacle course, and a spot next to the kitchen for my dark room. But it finally became home when I went to our bedroom to shower after a long afternoon spent processing film and found a large new frame hanging on the east-facing wall. Darren had carved out part of the white wall from the old nook where I had painted the floorplan in green and framed it. Staring at it with my hand over my mouth in shock, it took me back to that day––all of the confusion and the excitement and the dreaming.

"What do you think?" he asked when he appeared out of nowhere, hiding in the closet for who knows how long so he could surprise me.

I started to cry. "Now we're going to have to change the theme in here to match that shade of green." We both laughed because we were finally in the home that we had dreamt up so long ago after our first night together.

Noah stopped waking up in the middle of the night when we moved to the cottage. We waited up that first night, too excited to sleep anyway, telling each other stories from our childhood that we didn't know––like the time he and Phil started a homemade cologne business with creek water as the main ingredient––but Noah never appeared in his pajamas with his stuffed penguin at his side. He loved his new room with the wall that we let him cover with paint handprints and his big-boy bed.

After we declared the cottage our little spot in the world, there was only one more change to make. Noah was speaking in full sentences by the time we moved away from Windber and developing his own personality, too. They were the years he would start to remember. We wrestled with the difficult decision to become his fathers. We didn't want to replace Phil and Theresa, but we wanted him to feel like he was being raised by parents and not uncles.