Synchronicity for Six Pt. 06

Rose sighed, as her choice of leading Alan to the 'right decision' was not working. Okay then, lesson learned.

"I would like our marriage to start in OUR house, not your and Laura's house. And looking toward the future, we need our home to be large enough to accommodate our children plus possibly their children when they come to visit Nana and Pawpaw. I would like a house that is new for both of us; a blank slate, if you will, that we, you and I together, can furnish and decorate. It doesn't need to be new construction, just new for us."

Her measured tone as well as her holding his hand helped to take some of the sting out of her words. With David and Maggie being as responsible as they were, separate bedrooms for the two were no longer needed. So, the pressure for 'elbow room' had been somewhat alleviated. He had truly not considered that Rose would not adopt Laura's decorating scheme. It was a small failure on his part, and he embraced it. He took a big drink of his cocoa while she sipped her tea as he formulated his response.

He reflected on the reasonable points she raised. With all of the tumult in their lives of late, he had let this slip off of his list. She wouldn't be bringing this topic up unless she had something to share.

"Very well, my love. I take it that you either wish to identify needed and desired criteria, or you have something you'd like to show me."

"This property came up on the monthly report this morning. I wanted to talk with you about it before anything else. There's this house with a little bit of land, just outside the city limits but still on city services. Tell me what you think." She showed him the printout of her file including the Zillow estimate for this and comparable properties.

Five bedrooms, three full baths plus an apartment above the detached garage. Newer roof and HVAC systems. Six acres of property area. Zestimate showed $400,000. Four hundred grand! Alan's eyes widened at the concept of that number.

"Rose, sweetie, Laura and I bought this place for only $125,000. There's no way to make up this difference," he began.

"Alan, my love, do you know what the current real estate values are in this neighborhood?"

"No, not really. I never planned to move out of here."

"Okay, this has all come as a shock. Let's finish our drinks and head for bed. You need comforting, that's obvious. We can pick this up again tomorrow after you've done a little research. I will run our address on Zillow to get an idea of what this house might be worth. Come on, love." After making sure all the lights were out and the doors were locked, Rose led Alan to their bedroom for an early evening of comforting and snuggling. Five forty-five came awfully early and they had a new 6 AM coitus routine to observe.