Alec hits the wall with the sledgehammer and then swings it back for another blow. He is breathing heavily, enjoying the rhythm of smashing the hammer into the old plaster and lath again and again.
          Each swing sends up a small explosion of plaster and kindling. Nearly half of the wall is down now, giving him a clear view from the kitchen into the old dining room. If it was his house, he’d probably do the same thing. This will open up the kitchen into a big, airy room, perfect for the island countertop the new owners want him to install.
          It’s a good old house, solid and well-maintained. Alec’s favourite room is the little den tucked away at the back of the house. It would be perfect for Sophie—he’d put a big antique desk in there for her and install a window twice as big as the one there now so she’d have a nice view of the fruit trees in the back yard while she studied or worked on her computer.
          As he knocks down the old wall, he can see that it isn’t entirely original. There must have been a doorway into the dining room that was filled in at some point. But the newer section is made with plaster and lath like the older part of the wall, so the fill-in must date back to before World War Two, maybe even to the ‘20s. Alec knows the house was built in 1904 because the date is marked on the foundation in the basement where he will be installing a tiny rental suite in the weeks to come. It was his house, he’d fix up the basement as a rec room that could double as a guest bedroom, but the revenue from a suite would certainly help with mortgage payments.
          The hammer bounces off a stubborn stud. Thinking about money always makes his blood pressure go up. People were avoiding this old bungalow’s neighbourhood like the plague only two years ago, but now it’s already more expensive than most young couples can afford. Alec benefits from the booming housing market because of all the work it brings him, but he and Sophie can’t ever quite get enough money together to get into the market themselves. He could turn the most beat-up place into a mansion, but even fixer-uppers are beyond their means. With Sophie’s student loans and the instability of his self-employment, banks won’t give them a mortgage until they have a big nest egg. And Alec doesn’t know when that will be, especially since their expenses will go up once the baby arrives.
          The baby. They hadn’t been trying to get pregnant, but they’d talked about it enough that Alec knew Sophie wanted a baby. He did, too, except he would have preferred to have their own house first.
          He remembers when he found out Sophie was pregnant. He was working. He didn’t hear his cell over the whine of the band saw, but felt it vibrate in his shirt pocket. He stopped the saw, pulled out an earplug, and answered. “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone,” she started, and he knew before she spoke the words. Afterwards, standing under bright fluorescent light in someone else’s garage with sawdust, tools and equipment all around him, he searched his mind for his true feelings, his true reaction, and found nothing different from the excitement he’d shared with her, the words of love he’d spoken over the phone. And with relief at that, he replaced the earplug and started the saw up again.
          Alec is about to swing the sledgehammer again when he notices something inside the wall, resting in a little nook between two joists forming an X. He lowers the hammer reluctantly. Whatever it is, it’s small, and covered in old dust and a newly powdered plaster. He reaches in and pulls it out, then brushes it clean. The small package is wrapped in cloth, an old scarf it looks like, maybe even silk. He removes his heavy gloves and unwraps the cloth. The cleaner underside of the fabric reveals that it is indeed a scarf with a fine pattern of gold-coloured thread on an emerald green background. Sophie would love this.
          What he finds inside the scarf would intrigue Sophie even more. It’s a black, leather-bound notebook, well-worn, but solid in spite of the time it’s spent hidden away in the wall. Alec carefully opens it. The pages are still flexible, not brittle or dry, and they are covered in handwriting: precise, old-fashioned script in brown ink. There aren’t any dates so it doesn’t appear to be a diary. Some pages contain what might be poetry. Others are covered in paragraphs with words crossed out and re-written above, and tiny notes in the margins. The last dozen pages are blank. There is no name on the inside cover or front page, nothing to identify its owner or explain why it was sealed up inside the wall so long ago.
          Alec re-wraps the notebook in the scarf and puts it on the counter away from where he is working. He doesn’t want to damage it after it has survived so long hidden away. Later, he carries the book out to his truck and puts it in the glove compartment.

At home that evening, he showers and then gets a beer from the fridge. He stopped at McDonald’s on the way home. Sophie doesn’t like him eating fast food, but he couldn’t be bothered to cook for himself. He checks Sophie’s schedule out in its usual spot under the Bugs Bunny magnet. He has about an hour to veg in front of the TV before he has to pick her up. He sprawls on the couch, surfing channels until he settles on a basketball game.
          He can’t seem to get comfortable on the sofa. His shoulders are sore from swinging the sledgehammer. He used to ask Sophie for a massage when he was sore like this, but he hasn’t bothered her since she became pregnant. He’ll pop a couple Advil before going to pick her up. That and the beer should do the trick.

When he sees Sophie come out of Chapters, he waves to her from where he has double parked his truck. She walks toward him, led by her prominent stomach bulging out from her unbuttoned coat. She is a small woman, so even after four-and-a-half months, her belly is taking over.
          “What are you smiling about?” she asks when she gets to the truck.
          He doesn’t know how to express the way her belly stretching the fabric of her shirt taut across her breasts turns him on, at least not on the sidewalk in front of Chapters. Besides, it’s starting to rain. So he just says he’s happy to see her, and gives her a kiss. Though she smiles back at him, he can tell from her eyes that she’s exhausted.
          The wipers squeak on the way home and Alec reminds himself to get some new ones. Sophie talks about work. The head cashier was never around when she needed her to OK exchanges. She asks him about his day, but before he can tell her, the truck stalls at an intersection. It takes a while to get started, long enough that the driver behind them lets loose with a long blast on his horn before finding a break in traffic and racing around them.
          “Gotta change the spark plugs,” Alec says once they’re moving again.
          Sophie is quiet for a moment, and then says, “Listen, we need to tell my parents whether we want the money or not.”
          “I just need to give her a little attention, that’s all.” Alec pats the dashboard lovingly, hoping to get a laugh from Sophie. She used to tease him about his truck, saying he loved it move than her.
          “It’s not just that. What about when the baby comes?”
          This isn’t the first time this topic has come up, and Alec answers the same way he has before, “We can put a car seat in here. There’s lots of room.”
          “Sure,” she says, “that’ll work for a little while, but what if we have another baby?”
          Another baby? Alec almost snaps back that they can’t really afford this one so they shouldn’t be talking about having another, but he stops himself. Instead, he says calmly, “Sweetie, you know I need the truck for work, to haul plywood and drywall.”
          “I know, I know.” He can hear frustration in her voice now. “But what am I going to do all day on my own with no way to get around?”
          Alec fights to stop the anger rising in his chest. He hates the idea of taking money from her parents.
          “Just let me finish this job, Soph, and then we can talk about it. Once I get paid, we should have enough to get a car on our own.” This isn’t exactly true, but he wants to buy himself some time to come up with a better plan.
          Sophie stops talking, but he can tell she’s still mad by the way she stares out the window and refuses to look at him. After a couple of blocks, he pulls over into a vacant space.
          “What?” she snaps.
          “Didn’t you hear it?” he asks, a look of surprise on his face.
          “Hear what?”
          “Well, I distinctly heard someone say doughnut. If it wasn’t you, it must’ve been Junior." He points at her belly and then out the window. He has parked right in front of Tim Horton’s. When she looks back at him, he is relieved to see a small smile on her face.

Early the next morning, Sophie falls asleep shortly after they finish having sex. Alec has never much liked early-morning sex with its half-asleep fumblings and drowsy pace. Prior to the pregnancy, they generally had sex late at night right before they went to sleep. Now, Sophie is so exhausted that she usually falls asleep on the couch as they watch TV. He carries her to bed at the end of whatever show they’re watching and then returns to watch TV until midnight like they used to.
          After Sophie told him she was pregnant, Alec didn’t initiate sex for almost a month; he assumed she was too fragile or that the baby was. But then, before dawn one morning, he awoke to her hand around his erection, to her kissing his neck, and then guiding him inside her. She joked afterwards that the morning was the only time she had any energy any more so they might as well take advantage of it. He laughed, too, but then stayed awake until dawn, listening to her breathing and wondering about the life inside of her.
          Alec lies in bed for a few minutes listening to the drumming of the rain outside and the slow whisper of Sophie’s breathing next to him. He’d like to stay there but he has to get up for work. He gathers his work clothes and dresses in the bathroom so he won’t wake her up.
          His truck takes nearly half an hour to start. This is bad because he is supposed to meet the owners of the house he is renovating. Alec is about to give up and call a cab when the engine finally catches.
          When he gets to the house, he finds the owners already inside. Jeff and Julie Tsang. He feels his cheeks redden as he joins them in the kitchen. They are so young, in their early 20s. Both are dressed like they’re on the way to a party. Not for the first time he wonders where they get their money.
          “Hey, Alex, I was just about to call you,” Jeff says, waving his cell phone. Alec gave up correcting them about his name after their third conversation.
          “Yeah, sorry. My truck gave me some trouble.”
          Alec is glad he finished taking out the kitchen wall because now the house really looks worked on. Clients don’t always understand the pace of renovation work.
          Julie smiles up at him. She is tiny, even smaller than Sophie. Her English isn’t as strong as her husband’s. “Big now,” she says, gesturing at the new space created by the removal of the wall.
          “Yeah,” Alec agrees. “Nice big new kitchen.” He dislikes the way his own English becomes curt and stunted around people who don’t speak English very well.
          “Too big,” she says, and stares at him, still smiling. And again, “Too big.”
          Alec doesn’t know what to say in response, so he turns to Jeff.
          “Yeah, we’re thinking the kitchen is too big now that we see it without that wall.”
          “Oh,” Alec starts, but then doesn’t know what else to say.
          Julie walks about halfway across the old dining room and says, “New wall here.”
          Jeff expands on this, “The kitchen will be big enough if you put in a wall there.”
          But the other room would be too small for a dining room. Before Alec says this, Julie waves at the remaining space and says, “Sewing room,” and then, with a big smile for Jeff, “or baby room.”
          She mimes nestling an infant in her arms. From the reflected smile on Jeff’s face, Alec guesses that they probably just found out she’s pregnant.
          “Can you add a window there?” Jeff asks, pointing at the currently blank wall of what will be their new baby room.
          “Sure.” Alec starts to add up the new costs in his head.
          Jeff puts his arms around Julie and says, “Whatever it costs, don’t worry about it.”
          Whatever it costs. For a moment, Alec considers asking for twice as much as he should, but he starts to feel guilty before the idea has finished running through his head. He quotes an accurate figure and Jeff nods dismissively before asking about the plumbing for the island.

When Alec is finished for the day, his truck again takes a while to start, which pisses him off. He should probably take it in for a tune-up. It will cost more than doing it himself, but then again, his time is valuable, too. Jeff and Julie’s changes, after all, will mean more money—maybe enough that he and Sophie really could afford to buy a second car. Maybe on the weekend he’ll tell her they’re going grocery shopping, but then go to a used car lot instead. He can just imagine the look on her face.
          He stops by Canadian Tire on the way home to get some new spark plugs, oil, and an oil filter. He can at least do that much himself rather than pay a mechanic to do it for him. On the way out of the store, he takes out his phone to let Sophie know why he’s running late. The phone is turned off. Shit. He must have forgotten to turn it on that morning. When it lights up, it shows five messages waiting. Sophie, he thinks as he waits for the voicemail to come up.
          The first message is from around noon. Her voice is soft; he can tell she is worried about something. “Hey, honey, it’s me. I guess you’re on your phone. Listen, I’m a little… I had some spotting, some blood, this morning. I’m… Just call me back, OK? I’m sure it’s nothing but maybe I should go to the doctor.” He thinks of the sex from the morning. Was he too rough? She fell asleep right afterwards like nothing was wrong.
          The next message is from fifteen minutes later. Sophie’s voice is curt now, fearful, though she covers it with a jokey tone. “Hey, your phone better be on, buster, or you’re in big trouble. Call me back, OK? I want you to take me to the clinic.”
          Ten minutes after that: now he can tell she’s pissed off. “I called Dr. Mercier and she said it’s probably nothing, but I should get it checked out. Where are you? If you don’t call soon, I’m taking a cab.”
          And five minutes later, he hears tears in her voice, tears of anger mixed with fear. “Where the hell are you? Fine, I’m gonna call Rebecca and see if she can take me to the clinic. Why bother having a cell phone if you’re not even gonna turn it on?”
          The final message is from later, around when he was leaving work. Sophie’s voice is calm and cold, which he knows from experience is not a good combination. He’s in big trouble. “Everything’s fine. Rebecca took me to the clinic and they checked me out. The doctor said the baby is fine. Apparently, it just happens some times. I don’t know why you’re not home yet, but that’s OK, ‘cause I’m gonna have dinner with Rebecca. She’ll drop me off later.”
          At home, he opens the door hoping to find Sophie under a blanket on the couch or even stewing at the kitchen table. Either would be better than a dark and empty apartment. He sits down in front of the TV to wait for her, but he can’t seem to focus on anything. He doesn’t know what to do. Sophie doesn’t have her own cell phone, and if Rebecca does, he doesn’t know the number. His eyes are stinging. He turns off the TV and holds his head in his hands. He tries to cry, but nothing happens.
          “Fuck,” he says out loud to the empty room. After a few minutes, he goes out to his truck. Might as well make himself useful.

After changing the sparkplugs and the oil, Alec twists the key in the ignition. It starts, but still has that telltale sputter he’s been blaming on the sparkplugs. With the engine running, he tweaks the carburetor and the distributor, trying to see if he can even out the timing. He is resolving himself to the fact that he’s going to have to take it into a real mechanic when Rebecca’s Mazda pulls up, music blaring. Sophie is in the passenger seat, decidedly not looking at him. Alec closes the hood of his truck and turns off the ignition. He wipes his greasy hands on a rag.
          Sophie gets out of Rebecca’s car and waves as her friend drives off. Then, she slowly turns to face Alec. He prepares himself for the brunt of her anger, trying to think of something to say, but then she’s in his arms, crying, weeping really, almost uncontrollably. This brings tears to his own eyes, but he fights them off. He needs to be strong for her.

On Friday morning, Alec frames in the new wall. By noon, he’s got most of the drywall up. For lunch, he drives to McDonald’s. The truck is running better, and Sophie and the baby seem to be fine after the scare the other day. He told her to tell her parents they’d accept the loan, so they’re going to look for a used car on the weekend. He knows that Sophie’s parents aren’t going to be strict about them repaying the loan; it might even turn into a gift eventually, although he intends to pay them back as soon as possible.
          “That’ll be seven twenty-three. Please drive through.”
          He empties his wallet of change. He’s almost got enough so that he won’t have to break a twenty. He pops open the glove compartment, sure there are some pennies in there. The old notebook, still wrapped in the silk scarf, tumbles to the floor of the truck. He stares at it for a moment, but is distracted by the voice of the cashier asking for the money again. He finds the coins he needs and pays the teenager, then sits in the parking lot to eat his lunch while it’s still hot. He picks up the notebook up off the floor, but leaves it on the seat beside him, careful not to dirty it with his greasy fingers. He hurries through lunch so he can get back to work. He wants to finish the new wall before heading home for the weekend.
          At the house, he sits in the truck, holding the notebook, unopened, in his hands. He wonders about its original owner, and why it was hidden in the wall. He remembers how carefully the scarf was wrapped around it, how lovingly. He thinks about it for a while, and then winds the silk scarf around the book again. He carries it inside with him to the kitchen, where he places it on a cross-joist inside the new wall he is building. He lifts a piece of drywall into place in front of it and secures it with the nail-gun.
          It doesn’t take Alec long to finish closing up the new wall. Afterwards, rather than starting a new task, he decides to knock off early. Maybe he’ll surprise Sophie by making dinner. She’d like that.