Meryl noticed at once. “What?”
“Flashlight.”
Her stomach dropped at his tone. She fetched it and came back fast, kneeling beside him as he aimed the beam into the gap beneath the porch.
At first, she only saw shadow. Then the light settled, and the shape of the timber became clear.
The main support beam had split along most of its length.
The crack was ugly, jagged, and dark with damp. When Spencer touched the edge with his screwdriver, a chunk gave way.
“Oh.”
He did not comment at first. He kept the light on the beam as he assessed the damage.
“How bad?” she asked, needing to know the worst.
“Bad enough.” He sat back on his heels. “We can’t keep decking over this.”
Meryl stared down into the gap. “So we’ll replace that section.”
Spencer shook his head. “Not if the rot runs all the way along.”
She looked again, though she already knew what he was going to say.
“The whole beam?” she asked.
“The whole beam,” he confirmed.
She got to her feet and brushed her palms against her jeans, though they were already filthy. “How much work?”
“A lot.” Spencer stood too. “We’d have to take up the boards, support the porch properly, remove the damaged beam, fit a new one, then rebuild from there.”
“And the cost?”
He hesitated, which told her everything before he said, “Meryl...”
“How much?”
“For the beam and hardware alone, several hundred. Maybe more, depending on what else we find when it’s open.”
She gave a short laugh that held no humor at all. “Let’s face it, the more we look, the more we’ll find.”
Only minutes ago, the porch had felt manageable. Now it seemed to tilt beneath her again, not physically but in her head, becoming one more thing that would grow and grow until she could not keep hold of it.
“There has to be another way,” she said. “What if we reinforce it? Add supports under the worst of it. Buy some time.”
Spencer was quiet for too long.
“Well?”
“We could brace it,” he said. “But it wouldn’t be a real repair.”
“I’m not asking for perfect.”
“This isn’t about perfect.”
“No,” she said, sharper than she meant to. “Apparently, it never is with you.”
