Chapter Three
AUSTIN COLLAPSED back into his bed and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes. For the past week, he and Joe had met up at the house every chance they could to work through DeeDee’s hoard.
Thanks to Joe’s kids, they’d managed to empty the kitchen and living room of most of the garbage and donatable items. Yesterday they set several bags out by the curb for weekly garbage collection, but Austin wondered if they shouldn’t just rent a dumpster for the next month.
At the very least, the local waste collectors would thank them.
Two days ago, after they’d finished boxing up all the nonperishable unopened food, Joe piled it all into his truck and promised—hand on his heart—to bring it all to the local food bank. “I called them yesterday, and they said they’d take it and sort through it. They were excited.”
Of course, there were still boxes of items to sort through in both the living room and kitchen, but at least neither room currently felt like a death trap. Which hardly felt like a victory, considering how many rooms remained untouched.
Not to mention that they hadn’t been up to the second floor.
Austin was all set to explore it on day two when Joe vetoed the idea.
“I’ve called one of my mom’s contacts—a house inspector—to get her out to the place.
I’d like to know we won’t be falling through any floorboards before we head up there. ”
Austin’s first instinct had been to deny such a claim as ridiculous, but he couldn’t do that with any sort of confidence.
So while they waited, they continued working through the contents of the main floor.
They had a usable main bathroom now, which hadn’t even been terrifying on first approach since DeeDee had, thank God, kept it clean. Well, it was usable as long as it wasn’t raining, at least—which it had, frequently, over the past week, and every time it did, the kitchen sink gurgled.
At least the toilet didn’t back up when Joe flushed it during Friday night’s downpour.
Austin’s shout to just put the lid down had come too late.
He heard Joe swear on the other side of the door, and then it opened—Joe was using a Wet Wipe on his hands, evidently trying not to tax the plumbing further—and they met eyes for a moment before turning to the john in expectant horror.
When it became clear the toilet was not going to disgorge itself on the floor, Joe’s shoulders slumped. “We really need to call a plumber.” He paused and then said, “Well, once the home inspector’s been through. Unless she says it’s not worth it, I guess.”
Austin twitched in spite of himself. “What do you mean, not worth it?”
Joe gestured around. “I mean, you read the appraisal. Most of the value in the place is in the land. Anyone who buys it is probably going to tear it down anyway.”
Austin’s stomach flopped. Joe would know, what with his mother’s connections in the real estate world.
Lots this large didn’t come up often, already serviced and close enough to Essex not to be tremendously inconvenient.
He could just picture someone coming along and snapping it up, then razing the place and replacing it with some horrible soulless monstrosity.
“We could fix it,” Austin said.
“Maybe,” Joe allowed skeptically as they trudged back to the breezeway off the kitchen to finish disposing of the forest of dead potted plants. “But how long would it take, and how much money?”
He crossed his arms. “I put in a kitchen and bathroom for a couple grand.”
It wasn’t smart, he knew. Joe absolutely had a point, the same way he’d had a point about Austin’s disinclination to throw away anything that might still be remotely useful.
Joe goggled at him. “Nice ones?” he challenged after a moment.
Austin flushed, feeling defensive. “Everything works. Maybe it’s a little mismatched, but that’s because I wasn’t trying.
You can get whole used kitchens at Habitat ReStore, and you can paint most cabinets.
If we rip out everything that’s in here”—because even Austin had to admit that the current kitchen did not bear the effort of trying to salvage—“we’d have a blank slate.
We could make a lot of different things work. ”
Joe’s incredulous gaze turned calculating. “You really hate throwing stuff away.”
The heat in Austin’s cheeks doubled. He hated being so transparent to someone he’d just met—especially someone like Joe, who drove a nice newer-model truck with his business’s logo in vinyl on the side, who had somehow adopted four teenagers and earned their undying mockery and free labor, who was clean-cut and conventionally handsome and unconventionally charming.
He hated the reflexive urge to explain himself, which made him spit without thinking, “You would too, if you grew up with nothing.”
That effectively ended the conversation. Like bringing a gun to a knife fight, Austin thought. Well, anyway—“Come on, we’re almost done with the breezeway.”
Tonight, in his bed, Austin’s body reminded him that he’d been asking a lot of it lately.
Long days on his back under a chassis or bent over an engine, long evenings with Joe at the house, sorting through a seemingly endless pile of what even Austin had to admit was mostly crap, and then a half hour drive back to the garage before he could shower and fall into bed, at which point his brain caught a second wind and didn’t want to switch off.
One of these days, Austin was going to drop a transmission on his own head because he was tired. At least then he’d be able to stop thinking.
Would putting in a new kitchen be so hard?
Austin didn’t think so. Once they pulled the existing cabinets off the wall, they’d have room to move around.
They could flatten out that U-shaped set of cabinets into an elongated L that stretched into the addition, put in some better lighting.
There’d even be space for a big island with seating on both sides—plenty of room for family dinners or whatever.
Not that Austin had a family to have dinners with, but someone would appreciate it. Someone would breathe life back into that big, beautiful, neglected house.
Assuming the home inspector didn’t find anything else egregious, of course.
Austin flipped his pillow over and rolled onto his side, wondering how much bad news Joe would be willing to hear and still fix the place up.
The roof hadn’t leaked yet. The windows were old, but only one had a crack, and Austin had experience cutting glass; he could probably fix it.
The basement—God, Austin was not looking forward to the basement, but it was the next thing they had to clear a pathway to before the inspector came this week.
The basement could make or break it. If the foundation was crumbling, if the joists were damaged—
And then there was the plumbing, which, what was even going on with that?
On Thursday night, Austin had just pulled up to the house when the neighbor, a middle-aged woman named Linda, flagged him down for a chat; she mentioned the farmer to their rear had regraded the field a few years back and DeeDee had had trouble since.
“Something with the weeping beds,” she told him. “Whatever that means.”
Austin hadn’t known either, but it sounded like the sort of thing Joe would know about. Very landscapey. He should ask, he thought hazily as he fell into sleep.
Days later, they had cleared out sections of the house well enough for the inspector, who arrived with a lengthy checklist and a sardonic smile.
“Let’s see what we’re dealing with,” she quipped as Joe led her up the porch steps.
“Hiya! I’m Rita. You must be the mysterious co-owner Joe was despairing would never be found.” She held out her hand, which was clean and manicured in sharp contrast to her old jeans and boots.
“I usually just go by Austin. Less of a mouthful.”
Rita laughed. “Well, wouldn’t want to strain anyone.” She winked. “Shall we take a look at her?” She stepped through the front door. “We’ll come back outside later.”
Joe and Austin let her do her thing, but kept within shouting distance. Her full tour of the house took a while. Austin was practically chewing his fingers by the time she found them sorting things in the tiny main-floor office.
“So, good news or bad news first?”
“Always good,” Joe said before Austin could even gain use of his tongue.
“You’ve got good bones. The structure is, overall, sound. The basement looks good. The roof looks okay for now, and the house shouldn’t come down on you next blustery day.”
Relief filled Austin. That sounded promising. Like it wasn’t a write-off.
“But?” Joe prompted.
“But there’s a laundry list of repairs that need doing. Wanna go see them?”
They started in the kitchen.
“I’m sure you already noticed this,” she said wryly and placed a marble on the floor. It ran to the other side of the room, gaining speed.
It wasn’t like Austin hadn’t known about the slant, but watching the marble’s race to the extension twisted his stomach.
“But that framing is sound?” Joe said skeptically.
“Hard to say without pulling up the floor, since there’s no basement under the addition to get a look at it. Houses settle.” Rita shrugged. “But you should be able to raise things up.”
“So do you know why the sink is backing up?” Joe asked.
“The neighbor said something about weeping beds?” Austin put in.
Joe groaned and Rita nodded.
“Sounds like the change in the elevation of the farmer’s field is causing more rainwater to be directed into the leaching bed of the septic tank, which means it can then back up into the house.”
“How do we fix that?” Austin wanted the full to-do list.
“You’ll probably have to call in someone to clean the septic system, make sure the eavestroughs are directed away from the septic bed, and maybe regrade the yard. Keeping the grass cut short should help too.”
“Let’s hope it’s the lawn-mowing option,” Joe said dryly.
She ran them through the rest of the checklist.