The House Hunt
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Rob and Celia, in their separate ways, have been attempting to redefine their relationships with Celia’s mother, with whom they are in the process of buying a house.
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Rob’s firm closed the week between Christmas and New Year’s, so for the time being he was working only one job, the part time Starbucks job. He had planned to work extra shifts – he found that paying down debt and building savings provided him with more energy than sleep did – but he decided to take the extra time to do some house hunting with Celia. They could use the time together anyway while Mom worked the after-Christmas sales.
In the three weeks since they had decided to pursue buying a house together, Rob was encouraged that their plan was sound. He and his mother-in-law continued to get along famously and Rob felt confident that little could arise in their relationship that he could not handle. Celia, whose complicated relationship with her mother typically drained her, reported similar success. “When Mom started talking about decorating the nursery,” Celia told Rob, “I told her that I refuse to think about a nursery until we have a new house.”
They were driving around neighborhoods Rob considered affordable, trying to determine where to focus their search. “And she accepted that,” Celia continued. “I know it seems like a little thing, but I fully expected her to come up with some convoluted reasoning why outfitting the whole nursery and storing it in our living room until we move made sense. Time was I would have believed her, but”— Celia paused.
“But what?” Rob prompted.
“But our relationship is so much better now that you are a part of it. She’s less crazy”— Celia paused again, obviously in the middle of her comment.
—“And?” Rob prompted, again.
“And so am I,” Celia said. “You and I have known each other for five years now. It’s taken that long, but all the good stuff you got growing up – parents married, everyone happy more often than not – is rubbing off on me. I feel like I can handle my mother for the first time ever. Never in my life would it have occurred to me to live with her again, but I’m actually excited about this!”
Rob pulled over in front of a pretty, small Victorian on a tiny lot with a “For Sale” sign in front, turned off the engine and took Celia’s hand. “Look at that,” he said, pointing to the house. “I can’t believe this, but we could probably afford something like that. It doesn’t have a separate guesthouse or anything, but as well as the three of us are getting alone, we might not need to be so separate.
Celia looked at the house and sighed. “It looks like a place to raise a happy family, Rob.” She turned to him. “I really want to be a happy family.”
“So do I,” he said. Rob kissed his wife, quite content with his lot in life.
How does their plan unfold?
