He looked at her then. And she didn’t like what she read on his face. Disappointment.
“If that beam fails,” he said, “the whole porch goes with it. That’s not cosmetic. That’s structure.”
“I know what structure means.”
“Then you know why this matters,” he insisted.
Meryl folded her arms. “What I know is that every day this place becomes a bigger project. More work. More money. More time.” She looked away toward the trees because it was easier than looking at him. “I came here to get it ready to sell, not to rebuild half of it.”
When Spencer answered, his voice was lower. “I know.”
Did he?
He was not the one doing the sums in his head. He was not the one watching the budget shift every time another hidden problem came loose. He was not the one who had arrived with a two-week plan to clean and redecorate, and watched it stretch beyond recognition.
“There has to be a middle ground,” she said. “Something that makes it safe without turning this into a huge job.”
“Not with this.” He shook his head.
“Then maybe we replace the worst part and leave the rest,” she suggested.
“That gives you a weak joint in compromised timber.”
“Maybe it holds long enough.”
The second the words left her mouth, she wished she could take them back.
Spencer’s face changed, only slightly, but enough.
“Long enough for what?” he asked.
Meryl lifted her chin, suddenly and unreasonably defensive. “Long enough to get the place on the market.”
He was silent for a long moment.
Then he said evenly, “That might be enough for you. It wouldn’t be enough for me.”
She winced.
“I’m trying to be realistic,” she said. “I have limits, Spencer. Financial ones. Time ones. I can’t just keep pouring money into this place because it keeps deciding to reveal some fresh disaster.”
He looked back down at the beam. When he answered, the edge had gone out of his voice. “I know. And I’m not pretending that doesn’t matter.”
Meryl said nothing. She had nothing to say.
He crouched again and put his hand on the damaged timber. “But some things don’t get easier just because you want them to.”
That was it.
That was the argument beneath the argument, and they both knew it.
Meryl looked at the replaced boards, the tools, and the two coffee mugs still sitting where they had set them earlier. The whole mood had changed.
“So what now?” she asked.
Spencer straightened. “Now I go into town and price the proper beam. Then you know what the real number is before you decide.”
She wanted to tell him not to bother. Numbers would only make it real.
