The Restoration Ch. 01

"You clean up nicely," I complimented.

"Thanks, so do you," she smiled.

Once we'd made it to the pub, we settled into a comfortable booth. The Maple Leafs game was playing soundlessly overhead on the television. "It's nice to get out and socialize without having to work," I began.

"Agreed," Ana smiled. "I've got other friends who've been great about making sure I haven't become a hermit since Graham died, but it's always nice to make more. I've started thinking of you and Victoria as friends, not just neighbours."

"I'd call you a friend, too," I said, just as our beers were delivered.

"I'll drink to that," she said brightly, holding up her glass. "To friendship."

"To friendship." I took a big swig of beer. "So, you get out often with friends?"

"I wouldn't say often," she responded, "but enough. I was never a crazy social butterfly anyway. But there's that old saying about how people come together in a tragedy, and I've found that out how true that is. My group of high school and college friends had really drifted apart over the past couple of years, and after Graham died, someone was over at the apartment almost every single day, at first. It wasn't everyone; a couple of people I was close to drifted away from me, like they didn't know how to deal with a young widow. And most of the friends I knew through Graham aren't really in my life anymore. It's been lonely at times the longer it goes, and the more people move on with their lives, but I owe the friends that stayed loyal a lot. They would never let me be alone if I didn't want to be."

"Sounds like your friends are really good people," I observed.

"They are." She shifted in her chair. "Time heals all wounds, I suppose, but friends and family are really good bandages. They can help speed up the process. My therapist says that I can't rush things along, and I have to take life one day at a time. It's still a struggle for me, sometimes, but I feel like I have gotten a lot better at that."

"Better compared to before?"

She nodded. "Yes. Through therapy, I've learned that I had control issues before. I never knew that, but I did. Everything needed a time and a plan. I practically slept with my day planner under my pillow. And having a massive tragedy happen to me really made me realize that at the end of the day, you can't plan for everything. No matter what your best-laid plans are, at the end of the day, life is going to happen to you, and you have to play the hand you're dealt. I feel like compared to how I was before, I'm now more impulsive and more willing to just, I don't know, YOLO."

"I hate that expression," I said, laughing.

"Me too!" She smiled ear to ear. "Hashtag YOLO, whatevs."

"You sound like you're 19."

Ana shook her head. "I was never 19. I went from childhood straight to age 35. My sister always made fun of me for being such an old lady when I was younger. She was the wild one in the family. When she was in university, I saw her coming home drunk or stoned from parties, fighting with our parents, or bringing strange boys home when our parents were away, and I never wanted any part of that lifestyle. But I guess that's part of growing up, isn't it? I can't very well go do that now at 28, and now I'm feeling like I missed out. Having to re-examine it all has made me realize I maybe missed out on other things."

"I get that," I said. "I missed out on a lot, too. I was really insecure about being with, and then marrying a woman that was older, smarter, and more experienced than I was."

"I can imagine. But I never have gotten the impression from Victoria that she's not satisfied with your marriage. We've talked about you, and she's never had anything but positive things to say." Ana sipped her beer. "She talks about you in such glowing terms that I might not believe it, except that I've seen the evidence myself."

I blushed. "I'll have to thank her when I get home."

"You were right, also, that she has the knack for putting people at ease and making them talk. The first time we hung out, I had half a glass of wine, then somehow I was telling her about my deepest secrets and darkest fears and my sex life. I don't know how she does it."

"That's the Victoria I married." I paused, thinking. "You'll probably be happy to know that whatever you've told her, she hasn't spilled the beans. I know she can keep a secret, but you may not, so I haven't heard any of those stories."

"I wouldn't have minded." Ana shifted as she thought. "I always assume if I tell one half of a married couple something, that it's going to get back to the other half. It's no problem, as long as they both can keep a secret. Graham and I were like that."

"Maybe it's Victoria's government privacy law training, but she doesn't gossip with me," I reassured her.

"I wouldn't care. I assumed she was telling you. And I've grown to trust you both equally. I wouldn't have started speaking about my therapy sessions with just anyone, but I feel like I can talk to you. If we're cuddle-buddies, then I clearly am fine with being physically intimate with you. I have no problem being emotionally intimate, either. It's nice to make a new friend that I can say anything to."

"That's really good of you, thank you," I said, touched. "And I feel the same way about you."

"I wouldn't feel that way if you weren't worth it," Ana said with a small smile. "Both you and your wife."

"My wife is a wonderful woman, eh?" I smiled.

"That she is."

"I didn't always believe that I could be enough of a husband for her back when we were younger," I revealed. "I was insecure of her worldliness and life experience, and the fact that I didn't have any. It took me a long time to realize that she saw my comparative innocence as a good thing. I think when you have a really good relationship, you can find someone who can not just see past your insecurities, but even to see them as a positive."

"She dated a lot before you, right?" Ana asked.

"She did. I've never asked for gory details, but I know she had a lot of casual sex before she met me, and she had one other serious boyfriend she had been thinking might have been The One."

"And that doesn't bother you?" Ana pressed. "I don't honestly know how I'd have felt if Graham had slept around a lot in his past."

"Not anymore," I said truthfully. "It used to; that's where a lot of the insecurities came from. It's not that I had a problem with her having been around the block a few times. I'd never slut-shame anyone, and if I'm allowed to say so, it benefited me a lot that she had a lot of tricks in her back pocket when we started having sex."

"You're allowed to say so," Ana smirked. "I have no issue talking about sex with people I trust."

"I just felt like I didn't understand why she picked me. But by the time we got married, she'd shown me why. She helped with the insecurities and made me understand that she was wanting someone down-to-earth, kind, friendly, caring, unflashy. She was looking for a man like me, and once I accepted that beautiful women were out there trying to find men like me, it went away."

"That's really interesting," Ana mused as our chicken wings arrived. "I never really had any insecurities about Graham and I being together, probably because we were together so long that it just felt like the natural order of things. We started dating officially at age 15, but we were basically being pushed towards a wedding since childhood. We married young, and we waited until marriage to have sex. Those two facts are probably related."

I smirked. "I bet they were."

Ana nodded. "We probably shouldn't have waited. I always knew he was the one. Our parents had been after us to have children right after we married, but we had wanted to wait until we'd bought a house and really felt financially settled. Plus, I wanted to get settled into my career a little, too. I was never going to be a permanent stay-at-home mother."

"You wanted kids?" I asked.

"Yeah. We were going to start trying after the move was over," Ana said sadly. "I didn't want to move while pregnant, but we were ready otherwise. Now that he's gone, I still can't decide if I wished I'd gotten pregnant before or not. I would never have wanted to be a single parent, but it would be nice having a small piece of him still alive. I guess that'll never happen, now."

"Did you want children, or did your parents and his parents want grandchildren?" I asked.

"Both, but probably the latter more than the former," she admitted.

"Did you ever feel like your family pressure was preventing you from making your own decisions?" I asked.

"Not really," she said. "I was never the type to question decisions once I'd made them. But over the past year since he died? Yes, I've had the thought. I realized that I was with him so long that I didn't know which parts of me were both of us, and which parts of me were only me.

"I never would have chosen this path, but I am grateful for the opportunity to rediscover myself. How much of my life so far has been down to my family's influence, and would I have chosen the life I've had so far if I'd been given a little more leeway? I don't know. All I know is I was never really conscious of how many little decisions I'd made in life to get to where I was until I got knocked off that path, and now, I can look back and see that many of them were probably made to please our parents as much as they were to please ourselves."

"I feel for you, and I think it's the same in all close-knit Catholic families," I said. "I was groomed from birth to take over my Dad's business, and while I think I could have insisted on going my own way, I also think my parents made sure I never would. I was raised with a hammer and saw in my hands, and I think the only thing that could have prevented me from becoming a carpenter would have been a severe sawdust allergy."

Ana laughed. "They'd have insisted you take allergy pills."

"Oh, God, they probably would have," I agreed. "Quitting my job two and a half years ago, after I got rich, was the first time I've ever really stood up to them. Even now, I'm feeling the pressure from my Dad to come back to work. I didn't want to tell him that I was moved on to another house, but he found out somehow. He can't understand why I'm spending so much time working for free when I could come back to him and work for an income. He's even got my brother lobbying me to try to come back. I wish they'd respect my reasons."

"I mean, I can't say I fully understand your reasons, either," Ana interjected. "I'm eternally grateful to you, but you've given me so much more than I would have had any right to expect."

"It's partly the house, and partly you," I revealed. "I know that you know how much restoring a house properly means to me, and it's still the house next door. I'd like for it to look good because it helps the curb appeal on our street, and I've seen how bad renovations can ruin a house. What you want for the house is also my passion, and it's within my power to do as a hobby. But also, I love working with you. I love spending so much time with you. I love that what matters to me, also matters to you."

Ana smiled sweetly. "I love working with you, too. You've treated me so well since I moved in and made me feel welcome. Thank you again."

I smiled. "You're welcome. I'm always generally glad to have the time off from having to work as hard in the winter, but I can't wait to get back into it with you once it starts to warm up. At least I have a couple of winter vacations this year to look forward to. Our annual ski trip to Mont-Tremblant is next weekend, and then we're planning to go somewhere warm in March."

"That sounds amazing," Ana said, a hint of jealousy in her voice. "It's been a long time since I've done anything fun. I'd love to go somewhere warm."

We stayed late into the evening until the hockey game ended. I limited my beer consumption, given that I was driving, and Ana appeared not to want to outpace me, but it was a really good evening, and I felt by the end of the night that she was becoming not just a friend and a neighbour, but a truly close friend. Our evening ended with a long, tight goodnight hug as I dropped her off.

Victoria and I were having breakfast the next morning when she got a text.

"Oh, no," she remarked.

"What is it?"

"Steve and Katherine can't come with us skiing anymore." She frowned. "Their dog needs an operation, and they need to spend the money on that instead."

"Well, that sucks." Steve and Katherine were our closest couples' friends, and we'd done the ski vacation to Mont-Tremblant together each year since we'd been married.

Victoria kept texting. "Katherine says they're not going to leave us holding the bag, and they'll find a way to make it work if we can't change the rental to a one-bedroom chalet or hotel, or to find someone else to go with us. But they'd really prefer it if we can let them off the hook."

I shrugged. "I don't care about the money, and I doubt that we'd be able to change the accommodations this late in the game. Tremblant books up months out. Is there anyone you can think of we could ask?"

"Sofie and Mark?"

"I like your sister, but I can't stand that blowhard Mark. I don't want to go on vacation with him," I said firmly.

"Yeah, I know. I don't like him either." Victoria thought for a bit.

"Dave and Sam?" I suggested, already knowing what the answer would be.

"Much as I love the idea of going on a vacation where the three of you can drink and play video games and watch hockey without me, I'm going to take a hard pass." Victoria stuck out her tongue.

"You'd be welcome to play video games and watch hockey with us."

"Not my idea of fun." She kept thinking. "How about Ana?"

"I don't know if she skis," I responded, "but I can ask her. I mentioned it last night, and she sounded more interested in the sun than the skiing. But it's worth bringing it up."

"If she does, that could be fun," Victoria mused. "I don't think she'd be too much of a third wheel, and she's one of the only friends we have where we could both hang out with her one-on-one without it being awkward."

"Agreed. I'll ask her." I texted Ana about our unexpected cancellation, and then I asked if she skied.

I snowboard. I've never been to Mont-Tremblant, though, she wrote.

Do you want to come? I asked. It'll be a day and a half of skiing with a long drive on either end, though we don't always ski every hour of every day. Sometimes the après-ski with Steve and Katherine gets a little rambunctious, and we don't have it in us to head out the next day until later.

I haven't let loose like that since before Graham died, she responded. I was so busy with the funeral arrangements and getting ready to move, then after I met you, I just plunged into working nonstop on the house.

Have you let yourself stop in the past year?

No. The messages stopped for a moment before continuing. Keeping busy was helpful for my sanity, but it never really occurred to me that I might someday have to stop and decompress. If I'd gone on a holiday six months ago, I just would have moped through it. But you planted the idea in my head last night, and my God, this is exactly what I need right now. I've been thinking about it nonstop since last night, and I was looking up resorts just now when you texted me. I need a vacation.

It's settled, then, I typed. We'd both love to have you along.

The next Saturday morning, I mounted two sets of skis and a snowboard to the roof rack of Victoria's Hyundai Santa Fe, loaded up our luggage, and then climbed behind the wheel. Victoria hated long drives and was happy to let me handle all the driving, while Ana sat in the back seat.

It was not quite a full day's drive to Mont-Tremblant, and we left with enough time to make it to our rental cabin just before bedtime. The winter road conditions always made me a little nervous in the lead-up to departure, but I needn't have worried -- it was a gorgeous winter day, clear, sunny and cold, with a daytime high around -5 Celsius. There was snow on the sides of the roads that had fallen over the previous night, but nothing in the air, and the ploughs had ensured a clean, safe drive northeast.

Apart from a little traffic driving across Toronto, and then the same across Montreal hours later, the drive was uneventful. Ana was a great passenger, keeping up conversation with both of us, and not needing any unnecessary stops. She seemed excited, and I kept catching her eye in the rear-view mirror as we crawled along the 401.

The early-setting winter sun had fully set by the time we reached our destination by way of an SAQ liquor store. The cabin we'd been renting every year for the past decade was removed by about a fifteen-minute drive from the ski resort, with the trade-off of having to drive to the mountain each day being worth it in exchange for total privacy. It was set in the snowy Laurentian mountains in a heavily wooded area, at the end of a long, snowbound path, with no neighbours visible in any direction. Physically, the cabin was just that, a cabin -- there were two small bedrooms, a living room, a small kitchen/dining room and a bathroom, all done in Alpine décor with exposed wooden beams and high ceilings. There was also a large outdoor hot tub, which, as I knew from experience, was a lovely place in which to relax after a long day's skiing.

It had been a long day, so we all retired early. The next morning, I awoke before Victoria, and quietly left the room hoping not to disturb her. I've always been an earlier riser than she is, so I'm used to puttering quietly, making coffee and starting my day without her. When I reached the kitchen, though, Ana was there already. She looked slightly dishevelled, with her long hair a mess and sleepiness in her eyes, but I thought she looked beautiful anyway. She was wearing a white, loose-fitting tank top without a bra and long flannel pyjama bottoms. I thought the tank top might just have a tiny hint of being see-through, and I caught myself lingering my gaze a little too long before forcing myself to look away.

"Good morning," she said sleepily, flashing me a half-smile.

"Good morning."

She arose from her chair and pulled me into a long, deep hug. I hadn't hugged her braless before, and I savoured the feel of her chest pressed into mine, nearly kissing the top of her forehead out of instinct and being half-awake before catching myself.

"Coffee?" She indicated a pot that was clearly just finished brewing, with the coffeemaker making steam as it boiled the last of the water in the reservoir.

"Please."

She finished adding sugar and milk to her coffee and then moved to the couch, indicating I should join her. After grabbing my coffee, I sat and she curled into me, then I wrapped my arm around her.

"So, tell me about your friends Steve and Katherine," she began.

"What would you like to know?" I asked.

She raised her eyebrows, smiling. "How do you know them, I guess, and what kinds of wild hedonism do you get up to around here?"

"How much do you want to know?"

"You hinted at debauchery," she continued slyly, "and I need to figure out the ground rules if we're going to wind up in that hot tub tonight. I haven't let loose in ages, after all, and I don't want to cross any lines."

"Cutting right to the point, I see," I teased. "Katherine was Victoria's roommate through university. They're best friends, and they've always been ridiculously open with each other, but they're also competitive like crazy. We've had board game nights before that have ended in them yelling at each other, but they always make up after. They're as close as sisters, and they fight like sisters sometimes. She's a riot to hang out with, she has a great sense of humour and absolutely no shame.