Chapter 5 #2
My bedroom was as dark as the rest of the house, with no ceiling lights—no light at all, actually, except for my phone, which Theo had found in my trunk.
Once he said good night and shut the door behind himself, it felt a lot like sleeping in a cave.
I really, really didn’t want to start doing that again.
But I was on a bed here, and no matter how much dust and dirt surrounded me in the darkness, I was inside instead of out in nature. Also, he was just a few doors down, and that was very…
I thought. It was safe, somehow. It was like when I slept at Nicola’s house, where I knew that things were always ok. I had the same feeling at this moment, except I sneezed a lot more.
“Dust mites,” he diagnosed the next morning.
“I think it’s just the dirt getting up my nose,” I suggested, but he said it was probably due to Dermatophagoides farinae and Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus, because they created aeroallergens.
He thought that was another reason that I shouldn’t try to clean up the cabin.
Apparently, he’d been lying awake the night before and he’d come up with many things to demonstrate why this job was a bad idea, because he had changed his own mind about me taking it on.
“You’re isolated out here. What if something happens?” he asked me.
“Like what? Snake bites? Lightning strikes? Suffocation under mountains of papers?”
“Yes, all of those. I hadn’t even considered specifics like that but you could easily be injured by a pile of sliding trash,” he answered.
“I’m not worried,” I told him, and eventually, he had to stop arguing because he had to get to work. I knew when he arrived there, because I started getting texts from Regina and Pinar. They were also concerned.
“Is a romantic relationship developing between you and Dr. Winter?” Regina wanted to know, and Pinar, maybe remembering all my siblings, wanted to confirm my familiarity with condoms.
“It’s business,” I told both of them. “I’m here working for room and board, except no lumber (obviously).
” Neither of them understood and I got tired of trying to explain myself.
I had things to do today, and I tried to think of how my sisters would tackle this big task.
Every one of them approached a challenge like they were fighting a bear, with no hesitation and total ferocity.
I knew that actual bears would have been a lot tougher than this cabin, so there was really nothing to fear.
Theo had made me promise not to go up or down any flights of stairs, and that made me remember Sophie’s husband Danny and his warnings about safety.
I wrote to him to ask if he could come out and take a look around, and then I got to work myself.
I tried to behave the way Nicola would have, persistent but also organized.
Besides saying that I should stay on this floor, Theo hadn’t given me any real instructions other than to please, please be careful and keep my phone close at all times so that I would be able to call for help.
In my pursuit of organization, I decided to clean room by room, and the first place I would go was the kitchen.
I didn’t bother to take a shower but I did tie a cloth over my face to prevent Dermatophagoides problems, and I pulled my hair into a large pile on the top of my head. I was ready for war.
“Grace? Grace!”
In the distance, I heard my name, but it was dark. Holy Mary, what time was it? Had night already fallen? Had I fallen again?
Then my eyes were flooded with light. “There you are!” Theo said.
He folded back the pretty cloth that I’d found and draped over the table to make a more pleasant dining experience.
Then he put down the camping lantern that he held and reached for me.
“What are you doing under there?” he asked as he helped me to my feet.
“I was resting,” I explained, and I watched his eyes widen. He looked at me and he looked around the room, and briefly, he seemed to have lost the power of speech.
“What do you think of your cabin?” I asked.
“I…I…” He shook his head and I understood.
“I know. It’s shocking,” I agreed. It had taken hours and hours, but I had emptied this kitchen. “One thing we’re going to need is a dumpster. And a lot more cleaning supplies, and also an exterminator.” I really liked most animals, but rats were a different story.
“I…” He stopped and seemed to gather himself. “I can’t believe what was under all that stuff. It’s awful.”
That was also true. I had been hoping to uncover a working stove and oven, for example, but I’d definitely smelled smoke when I’d tried to turn on that appliance.
I had thought that maybe we could paint the cabinets and refresh them, like Nicola had done in her house before they’d redone the kitchen entirely, but the ones in here didn’t seem to be firmly attached to the walls and several had fallen off when I’d touched them.
They had mostly been filled with junk, but there had been a few good finds.
“There was a full set of cast iron pots and pans,” I said. “It’s too bad that they were so heavy, because the bottom of that cabinet had given way and then the floor under it did, too, so a lot of them ended up in the basement. But I didn’t go down the stairs to get them, just like you asked.”
“Holy hell. There are holes in the floor.”
“A lot of those. My brother-in-law made a few more, too.”
Theo stared blearily at me. “What?”
I explained how Danny had made time to drive out here, because he was a very nice person.
“He came to make a few diagnoses, like you do at your office, but he can’t take on all this.
” I pointed, indicating everything. “He recommended the contractor who worked on Nicola and Jude’s house, the son of Nicola’s friend Eddie’s girlfriend, Monique. ”
“I need to write all this down. I’m losing track of people again.” He rubbed his jaws, both sides.
“No, you don’t need to know Keon’s name quite yet and you don’t need to know about the secret sexual relationship between his mother Monique and Nicola’s friend Eddie.
I wasn’t supposed to know about it, either, but anyway, they’re now official.
Keon used to hate Eddie but they worked on things and they’re ok. You don’t need to know that either.”
He was still rubbing his jaws but after a moment, he also seemed to relax and he took another look around. “I can’t believe what you accomplished in here,” he commented.
I looked, too. The room, which had been full to brimming with stacks of crap on every surface, was now basically empty.
The floor was bare and the counters were totally clear.
I’d gotten rid of the rotting cabinets, so that it was even emptier than it was meant to be, and I’d washed the windows inside and out so that the sunlight had streamed through…
but that had stopped. When had it gotten so dark?
“What time is it?” I wondered, and then took out my phone. I had kept it on my person, as Theo had requested, but the screen was so grimy that I couldn’t see anything there.
“It’s after nine. I tried to get back earlier than usual, but just as I was leaving, I got another call. I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I wish I’d been here to help you.”
I didn’t really understand. “This is my job,” I reminded him, in case he’d forgotten. “I’m supposed to do it, not you. How else would I get board? I don’t mean the other kind of bored, like I was whining for something to do.”
“I understood you,” he said. “I was going to suggest that we go eat, but I don’t know…” He hesitated. “Have you looked at yourself lately?”
“I went to the bathroom a few times, but the mirror is too smudged to see much.” I lifted my hands to my hair. “Am I smudged, too?”
“It’s more than smudges. I was thinking that you might need a hose, but it’s really cold outside.”
“I’ll strip on the porch and then I’ll shower,” I suggested, and went toward the front door. I was so tired that I stumbled a little and I could tell that I would be sore tomorrow, just like when I’d had the job at the zoo. Dung was so much heavier than you would have thought.
It took a long time before the water in the shower ran clean.
I had done as I’d suggested and left my dirty clothes outside, and Theo had made a big deal about calling out from the empty kitchen to let me know that the coast was clear and that I could walk through naked without him seeing.
He had also reminded me to wear shoes but had said that he wanted me to get a tetanus update, anyway.
We ate some more leftovers and then I went to go sleep in the bed rather than underneath the kitchen table.
Theo walked with me, and stopped outside my door. “You know, even with the holes, the missing cabinets, and the water stains on the ceiling—what?”
I had started to interrupt to mention the rats, but then stopped myself. “Never mind. I think you were going to say something nice.”
“I was,” he agreed. “I was going to say that despite the problems and despite how it still doesn’t look much like a functioning kitchen, it’s so much better than it was when I left this morning.
I feel like I can breathe in there.” He inhaled to demonstrate, sneezed, and then smiled at me. “Thank you, Grace.”
“You’re welcome. I think it went great and there’s not that much more to do,” I mentioned.
“Not much more?”
I nodded. “Just seven rooms on this floor, the basement, the second story, the attic, the yard, and that barn in the back. And the other outbuildings,” I added. “We’re well on the way.”
His smile had faded as I’d spoken. “Yeah. Yeah, we’re on the way,” he echoed, but his voice was flat, and then he suggested that we both should go to bed. “You worked so hard today.”
“I told you that I could. Tomorrow, I want to start on your room, so make sure to put away anything you don’t want me to see.”