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Read an excerpt from Rachel Simon's Building a Home with my Husband (Continued...)

Up the stairs he flies. To the left is a pitiful-looking bathroom tiled in a hazard-sign black and yellow. He barrels through the hall, throwing open a door halfway down. The room's crammed with more book, record—records!—excerise machines, laundry. What a mess. The door for the back bedroom opens to an unmade bed, two cats quivering beneath. Hand-me-down cabinets. No jewelry box, no fur, no designer labels, no flashy knickknacks. Of all the houses he could've picked, why'd he pick this loser? One more possibility on this floor, Feet sprinting over the crappy green carpet back down the hall, he throws himself into the front bedroom. Only—it's a home office. Jammed to the ceiling with shelves, file cabinets, storage units, desks, copier—and a laptop!

Bbbbrrrraaaannnnnkkkkk.

The sound comes up: ear-splitting, heart-wrenching, security-company alerting. Out, get out. No: take a peek at the third floor. He whips around the corner, up the stairs. It's one room, bright with windows, crammed with electric guitars, bass guitars, weirdo guitarlike instruments, computers, amplifiers, homemade electric drum set, microphones. Way too much to unplug.

Laptop in hand, he tears down to flights of stairs, hurls through the living room, dinning room, kitchen, fives into the basement, laughs with victory as he reaches the open door—

And sees a workshop. Table saw, power drill, plywood. Lookie here: a new router.

Router in hand, laptop in the other, he rockets outside. Down the alley, into the backyard, over the fence, onto the street. The alarm shrieking in vain behind him.

* * *

I'm not thinking of alarms as I race toward my connecting flight. I'm only congratulating myself on how much lighter my carry-on is than usual. For the past year, I've lugged my laptop on my trips, only to find that it grew heavier with each airport. This time I finally left it home.

Even so, I'm sweating when I take my seat. My layover required a breathless dash across Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, and now, overhead bins slamming shut above me. I have only a few minutes to check my voice mail. There's one message. Expecting nothing important, I shuck off my coat while I press the code to listen. "It's me," Hal says, his voice serious. He never sounds like this, and I freeze as he continues: "Call me as soon as you get this." The message ends so quickly, it barely seems to exist.

I dial him with shaking hands. It's already nighttime back in Delaware—anything could have happened. Has someone I love been in a car accident? Had a heart attack? Please, not my sister Beth. Not my father. Friends. Even my mother. Please, please, please—it can't be Hal.

Immediately upon answering, Hal says, "Did you take your laptop to San Diego?"

My confusion at his question overwhelms my relief that he's a live. "What?"

"Your laptop. Where is it?"

"In my study at home."

"No, it's not." He sighs, and explains what happened. "I'm sorry, Baboo," he says.

I try to speak, but the shake that was in my hands is radiating through my body. Though hardly as catastrophic as a flatlining monitor in an intensive care unit, losing a laptop means losing everything I've done for months. I do have copies of my recent writing, but when I back up last week, I once again neglected my address book. I add names so often that I keep postponing this chore.

My hand reflexively covers my mouth. How could I have been so reckless? I, of all people, who measure my wealth by those I care about and those who care about me? Who, having enduring a supernova of a childhood, grieves every loss, and has pursued the most impossible revivals? Yet my procrastination has lost me enough people to fill ten airplanes, and unlike Hal, and Beth, and my mother—each gone from my life for many years, then returned—I'll never get those lost friends back.

"Rae?" Hal says.

"What did the police say?" I croak.

"They didn't get any fingerprints."

"So that's it?"

"They said they'd investigate. But I think we can kiss that laptop good-bye."