Lifting her chin in challenge, she replied, “Yes. A plan for a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar rehab with milestones, materials, and approved subcontractors.”
She exited, the door slamming behind her. I hated fighting with my best friend, and though Shannon and I never carried an argument for more than a couple of days, I knew she was capable of completely shutting me out if I pushed the wrong way at the wrong time. If her years-long feud with Erin was any indication, Shannon was ruthless when it came to holding grudges.
The thirty-minute drive was quiet while Andy flipped through her notebook and I tried to remember my last visit to Eastern Pond Road. It was probably around the time Angus kicked Erin out, and that was seven or eight years ago, maybe more, and it wasn’t a pleasant visit.
The memory of him leaning out her bedroom window, tossing books and clothes to the lawn while raging about our mother screwing every man in town and winding up pregnant was hard to forget. Erin sobbed on the porch steps while he screamed unimaginably horrible things about our sweet little mother, the mother she didn’t know long enough to remember. Forever the peacemaker, Matt eventually convinced Angus to leave Erin’s room, enticing him with a fresh bottle of scotch and the promise that Erin was leaving.
Erin cried herself to sleep on Shannon’s bed that night. Matt, Shannon, and I figured out how we’d collectively care for a teenager while struggling to get the business off the ground.
Stopping at the rusty wrought iron gates, I leaned over the steering wheel, taking in the rambling expanse of land.
“We’re looking for dogs?”
“It’s a mystery,” I murmured, and rolled down the window to enter the access code. The gates moaned and creaked when they swung wide, and I bit back a groan as I drove up the winding driveway.
“Oh my God,” Andy whispered when I pulled to a stop in front of the house. “That’s an 1880s Arts and Crafts. These are incredible.”
A quick scan of the property told me Angus kept a landscaper on the payroll, and part of the chimney looked new. Of course. It was all about the façade. Appearances were the only things that truly mattered to Angus.
I was more than a little relieved angry dogs were not descending upon us. That, of course, left rusty nails, burned baby pictures, and bottle caps, but I could handle those. It was the energy radiating off the property, the lingering sadness speaking volumes about the sorrows the house knew, that I wasn’t prepared to handle.
“I love this style,” she breathed, running her hand over the stone wall surrounding the front porch. “This is a rehab? Do we have any other information?”
The scent of lemon cleaning products slammed into me when I stepped through the front door. Andy was busy caressing the bench carved into the side of the staircase, and didn’t notice me wander through the sparsely furnished living room and dining room.
For a house receiving only basic maintenance over the past two decades, it wasn’t in bad shape. Trees growing through the windows and raccoons nesting in the pantry were my worst case, yet likely, scenario. We could thank the housekeeper for not only finding Angus after his stroke but also keeping the flora and fauna at bay.
Staring out the family room windows at the blue slate patio, garden, and pool, I searched for good memories. They were there, in the far back, and most of them were tainted with the knowledge my mother would die before my eleventh birthday and Angus was a miserable bastard who would ruin everything good and pure that we knew.
“I walked every room and captured some rough dimensions,” Andy announced as she approached the wall of windows. I stared at her, startled that my thoughts led me far enough astray for Andy to study the entire house. Examining six thousand square feet over three floors plus a basement meant I spent more than an hour in my own head. “This place is incredible. Lots of dated energy systems but—”
“Any evidence of water damage?” I interrupted. “Or animals?”
“No water, no woodland creatures. I checked all the crawl spaces.”
“Good,” I murmured. “What are you thinking? Walk me through your plan. Start with fundamentals and then go through preservation.”
She paused, her brow furrowed as she paged through her notebook. “I’m thinking a lot of things. This place has amazing bones, but…what’s the story? Is this a client property or an investment property? It’s almost completely empty, but it looks like someone still lives here.”
“It’s a little of both,” I replied.
“Hm. Well…I’d start with energy systems, then deal with exterior—”
“Actually, no. I don’t want to hear this.” Turning, I retreated to the library, my fingers skating along the built-in bookcase until I found the lever. Pressing down, the structure glided away from the wall, revealing a narrow set of stairs. The wine cellar held a few dusty bottles and a small colony of spider webs, and the best look at the foundation.
A flashlight landed in my palm before I could ask, and I scanned the foundation for cracks and leaks. “Thank you. Budget of two-fifty, focus on shoring up the structure and systems as needed. Turn it green. Draw it up and get started. Keep me out of it unless you hit a wall. And do not mention anything about this to Sam.”
“Hm.”
I squatted to study a dark corner while Andy walked through the hidden rooms. I wanted to find a major foundation issue, anything that would give me the green light to level the property, sell the land, and never come here again.
“Patrick?” she called. When I found her, she was inside a small root cellar, and her focus was on the door where our ages and heights were recorded each year on our birthdays. “Where are we?”
I glanced at Erin’s name, and the short increments marking her height. It stopped after her second birthday, and I immediately remembered her bobbling around as a chubby baby, wailing for mama every single night for months after my mother died. We took turns holding her, walking her, singing to her, making bottles. None of it worked. Eventually, she started falling asleep with Shannon and refused to get into bed unless Shannon was right there with her.
My stomach twisted. I didn’t want to think about the past. The lost childhoods. Angus’s drunkenness and gambling and rage. I didn’t want the memories of Sam’s hysterical screams when the paramedics tore him off my mother’s lifeless body. I didn’t want to remember making the call to 911 or how long it took me to wash away all that blood.
The first towel soaked all the way through until I couldn’t see any white, just red, so much red. Then the second. Then the third. I piled six towels in the bathtub that night.
