Moments later in the darkness of the sonography room, we are asked if we want to know the sex of our child from my blood results, and as the nurse tells us, something beautiful bursts open inside me.
* * *
The drive to The Hydes is long. After two hours of freeway and an hour of forest-flanked highway, we stop at a local gas station. It’s the only sign of civilization we’ve seen for miles and it looks unmanned. Edward jumps out to fill us up and I catch sight of an attendant in the cramped kiosk across the forecourt.
The GPS says we have another forty-five minutes before we arrive at The Hydes, and I still haven’t had a chance to listen to the rest of the tape. I plunge a hand into my bag in the footwell and check it’s still there, the dry foam of the headphones brushing reassuringly against my wrist. The tape is stored in a separate zip pocket. I feel safer with the two apart. The rest of Side B is waiting for me and the sooner I can listen the better. I haven’t had a second away from Edward since last night though.
I look out at the gas station hoping for signs of a restroom. I could listen to it now, lock myself away in a grotty toilet for as long as I need and refuse to come out. But even as I think it I know it’s a terrible idea. What would Edward think? I watch as he ambles back to the car and slips in beside me, blissfully unaware of the thoughts and fears racing through me. He’s certainly not acting as if he heard anything on the tape. He would have said something, surely, and we certainly wouldn’t be on our way to his childhood home to meet his family if he’d heard what was on it.
He restarts the engine, handing me a chilled bottle of water and a gas station snack with a smile. ‘This’ll keep you going,’ he says, and I think how great a husband he’s going to be; a great father, if we ever get that far.
We roll out of the station and I let my gaze skim the landscape rushing past, mile after mile of thickly packed forest still standing between us and them.
As we drive, Edward tells me more about The Hydes and I try to picture it.
‘John Livingston Holbeck bought the land back in 1886, but the house wasn’t there then. He demolished the original building, razed it to the ground and rebuilt something bigger, grander. Something with more history.’
‘He built something with more history? What the hell does that mean? How would a new building have more history?’ I interject, my European sensibilities ruffled.
‘Because it wasn’t a new building. He bought a stone mansion from somewhere in the hills outside Budapest. A castle. He had it taken apart and shipped over here to the US. They rebuilt, stone by stone, and it became The Hydes. Alma, John’s wife, had remarked on it from a carriage on their honeymoon. The building had fallen into disrepair, so the story goes, and it had made her sad.’
‘It made her sad so he rescued it, brought it home to America? Like a dog at the pound?’
Edward chuckles. ‘Yeah, I guess. But you have to remember, JL basically owned logistics back then, so it was nothing to him to move things. To build. If you wanted to get anything in the US from A to B, you had to pay John Livingston Holbeck’s companies to do it for you. So, he could cover a lot of ground on a whim.’
I nod, conceding the point. He had a monopoly, or close to one. Back then you had no choice but to make J. L. Holbeck richer.
‘So,’ Edward continues, ‘he shipped the house over, bricks and all, and had it reconstructed here. It was an enormous project, took them two years to finish. He brought over Hungarian stonemasons, landscapers, set up a kind of village of workers. He wanted it to be perfect for Alma.’
‘Romantic,’ I mutter under my breath, because if I’m honest I have to wonder whether Alma really did want a giant stone house erected in the middle of nowhere, miles from anyone she knew. Though, then again, perhaps she did, and maybe I’m being unfair.
‘I can’t wait for you to see the place,’ he says, his eyes on the road. ‘You know, you can get used to things, having things, and it’s only when you show other people that you see it again. With fresh eyes.’