“Ready?” He turned to her with a puzzled frown. “For what?”
“Ready to dothe work. We asked them to come out here.” She pointed to where bright-colored marks were spray-painted to show where electric and waterlines were running. “See, they already marked the ground. So it’s safe to dig.”
“Safe? Dig?” He cocked his head to one side.
“Yes. We don’t want to break a waterline or get electrocuted.”
“Electrocuted?” His eyes widened with alarm, and she remembered how he sometimes overreacted to danger or pain.
“Yes, Dad. This is very dangerous work. We better go inside. Stay safe.”
“Safe?” He was completely bamboozled now.
“Yes.” She steered him back toward the front porch. “We don’t want to get hurt out here. Let’s go inside.Stay safe.”
His steps grew more feeble, and he began to lean more heavily on her arm. “Yes. Stay safe.”
She’d already witnessed several incidents of Dad’s heightened sense of pain and danger and impending peril. It boggled her mind how a man who at one time could hammer his thumb and not even mumble would now whine like a baby if his support socks felt overly tight or he pricked his finger. She couldn’t recall her father ever being frightened of anything before. Even when a sick cougar killed a calf, Dad had simply grabbed his rifle and gone hunting. FTD, she continued to learn, was a baffling disease. And not only for the sufferer. The way it twisted one’s mind was mysterious to the experts too. But she’d also discovered that you could sometimes make the ailment work for you. Perhaps it was disingenuous, or maybe just opportunistic.
With her dad safely in the house, she was just closing the front door when Cooper came bounding down the stairs. Tempted to scold her daughter for leaving her grandpa to his own devices, Jewel stopped herself. That wasn’t fair. A thirteen-year-old shouldn’t be responsible for a befuddled man’s whereabouts. Especially an escape artist like her father. He could slip out of sight in a split second. And between the three of them, he’d pulled some wild stunts.
“Did you finish watchingTrue Grit?” Jewel asked her dad as she led him to his recliner.
“True Grit?” he repeated with interest, like he hadn’t seen that movie about a hundred times ... or more.
“Yes.” She reached for the remote. “Let’s see if we can find it.” As she pulled up the right streaming service, she exchanged glances with Cooper, nodding toward the kitchen in a hint that she wanted a private conversation with her daughter. She increased the volume enough to camouflage the machinery noise outside, then closed the drapes on the side window. Hopefully that’d discourage him from peering out and getting all worked up over the earth-moving going on outside.
Satisfied that he was momentarily occupied, she met Cooper in the kitchen and quickly explained his fixation on the excavators. “I know he’s going to create a problem if he gets the chance.Can you ride herd on him while I’m out there? I want to be sure the excavators are doing what they’re supposed to.”
“I was just going over to Anna’s,” Cooper protested. “I was with Grandpa all morning.”
“Right...” Jewel didn’t want to rock her daughter’s boat. After all, she greatly appreciated Cooper’s friendship with Anna and did all she could to support it. “Well, okay, I’ll figure out something. And thanks for helping with Grandpa this morning.”
Cooper grabbed an apple from the fruit bowl and grinned. “I’m sure the workers know what they’re doing, Mom. It’s not like you’re an expert or anything.”
“That’s true. But it’d be a mess if they tore up the wrong piece of land.”
Cooper shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Where’s Grandma, by the way?”
“She went to her room to have a rest.”
“Good. Well, have fun at Anna’s.” Jewel forced a smile. It wouldn’t kill Jewel to sit with her dad for a while. She could sneak glimpses at the workers through the curtains when he got distracted. Cooper was right though. The excavators really should know what they were doing.
She went into the living room to be sure her dad hadn’t snuck off again and was relieved to find him sound asleep and snoring. She turned down the TV’s volume and sat on the couch so she could scroll through paint shade combinations for the new house on her phone. It seemed important to make the little house attractive for two reasons. One, she wanted her parents to really like their new space and, two, she wanted it to be attractive next to the old farmhouse for when they turned it into a B&B. The body of the main house was celery green with creamy white trim, her grandma’s choice years ago. The color wasn’t bad, but it was probably in need of a new coat of paint by now too.
Jewel decided on a deeper shade of green for the new house—a cross between moss and olive. It would be distinctly different and yet complementary to the farmhouse. Plus, the darker shade would help it to blend in with the green fields around it. For trim,she would go with an espresso brown. And she finally settled on a warm terra-cotta red, similar to their old barn, to transform the bright turquoise blue front door, as well as the flower boxes Aaron was supposed to bring by. She decided to order the paint online and pick it up the next time she went to town. That way she’d be ready to slap it on as soon as the house was put in place. Hopefully before Dad got a chance to complain about the strange shade of yellow. But before she did anything, she would seek her mom’s approval on the paint colors. As for her dad, well, it probably didn’t matter since what he liked today he might hate by tomorrow. Like bananas. Sometimes he loved nothing more, but just this morning he’d tossed one in the trash with only a single bite taken, claiming he never liked bananas. Go figure.
She glanced over at him, sleeping so peacefully, just quietly snoring. In moments like this, her heart softened toward him.Dadwas still in there, but sometimes it was hard to see. She still wasn’t sure how he’d deal with the Orosco barbecue tomorrow night. After his first contrary reaction to the invite, no one had mentioned it to him. But maybe it’d be like bananas, and he’d change his mind about disliking Miguel. Mom had told Jewel she’d stay home with him if he refused to go, but Jewel still wanted to encourage her to go anyway. Maybe if Mom went, Dad would give in and go. Or else he’d stay home alone and get into some new kind of trouble. That wouldn’t be good. Jewel sighed. Choosing what was best for that old man was like walking through a minefield.
By the end of the day, the spot for the manufactured home had been fully excavated and filled with gravel, the new septic tank had been dropped into place, and water and power lines had been dug. Unfortunately it looked like a great big mess—especially to Dad. Jewel tried to tell him that it would all get better soon. Feeling responsible for his disgruntled state, she offered to walk him around and attempt to explain, step-by-step, what was happening.
The deep trenches for lines had been cordoned off with yellow tape, which she tried to point out. “That’s to warn you not to gotoo close,” she told him as they strolled around, keeping a safe distance from the site. “The crew will be back early next week to lay pipes and wires and then they’ll refill all these holes.”
He grunted. “Better refill ’em.”
“Yes. They will, Dad.” She pointed to the gravel rectangle. “And the new house will go right there.”
