5. Teddy
TEDDY
The cool morning light filtered through the cracked windows of the cider barn, casting long beams of pale gold across the weathered floorboards.
A stillness hung in the cavernous space.
Teddy stood right in the middle of the main floor, her grandfather's steel framing square held loosely in her right hand.
She'd risen before dawn, slipping out of the silent farmhouse while her sisters were still sleeping, desperate to escape the crushing gravity of the previous night's warnings.
She had to lose herself in the concrete reality of physical labor, where problems could be measured with a ruler and solved with a chisel.
She'd spent her entire career handling structural timber trusses and leveling heritage masonry foundations, finding a sense of peace in the predictable logic of construction.
When she had her hands on a solid piece of white oak or a perfectly squared beam, she knew exactly what was required of her.
No hidden motives, unspoken grievances, or shifting boundaries existed in the world of carpentry.
A joint was either square or it wasn't; a foundation was either level or it was failing.
But the emotional framework of her family was a far more complicated structure, one that she'd never been able to measure or stabilize.
She approached the massive support columns that held up the center loft, tracing the hand-hewn surface of an ancient white oak timber.
She felt the slight dampness in the wood, a warning sign that made her chest tighten with professional concern.
Kneeling on the floorboards, she retrieved her steel awl from her leather tool belt and pressed the sharp tip against the base of the sill plate.
The metal slid into the timber with a sickening ease, the wood yielding like soft cork for nearly three inches before finding solid heartwood.
Teddy let out a breath, her jaw tightening as she noted the depth of the rot.
The sill was failing, slowly crushing under the immense weight of the timber frame above it.
She rose and moved toward the eastern wall, her gaze tracing the line of the structural posts where they met the stone foundation.
She tapped the wood with her framing hammer, the dull thud confirming her suspicions.
The foundation had settled over the decades, and instead of correcting the shift, someone had simply driven wedge-shaped shims of soft pine under the posts to level the floorboards.
It was a cosmetic fix designed to hide a fundamental structural failure, a quick patch that ignored the true danger beneath.
She'd spent her life acting as the unyielding column that held up everyone else's ceiling, constantly laboring without a word to make certain she didn’t burden her sisters.
Teddy had been the quiet child who achieved top marks, completed her chores, and never asked for assistance, believing that her diligence was the single avenue to earning her mother's approval.
She took responsibility and did more than was asked of her.
But while she'd been working to prove herself capable and self-sufficient, her mother had been pouring all her energy into others. She couldn’t help but feel resentment toward her mother.
She left the cider barn and headed for the equipment shed, her hand brushing the rusted hinges of the double doors.
The morning air was crisp, carrying the sharp scent of damp earth and bruised fruit from the orchard outside.
Inside the shed, she found a main header that had been notched so deeply to accommodate a newer sliding door track that its structural integrity was completely compromised.
The beam was bowing under the weight of the roof, the fibers of the wood splintering under a pressure they were never designed to withstand.
This season was not off to a good start.
Not only was the cider barn in need of repairs, but so was the equipment shed.
In the barn’s lower storage room, the floor joists were sagging under the weight of the old pressing machinery, supported only by makeshift columns of stacked cedar blocks that sat directly on the moist earth without any concrete footings.
The entire complex was riddled with these structural scars, years of temporary repairs that had been applied just to get the business through another harvest. During the autumn season that Dahlia had managed, Teddy had repaired the roof after a terrible storm, but she hadn’t taken a close look at anything else.
Her sisters had managed two successful seasons here, but they'd remained completely blind to the rot beneath their feet.
They'd run the cash registers, replenished stock, managed the Harvest Hollow Fall Festival, and celebrated their rising profits, while the structural base of their mother's legacy was slowly turning to sawdust.
Teddy sat down on an empty wooden crate, resting her elbows on her knees as she studied the rotting sill plate.
The discovery brought a bitter pinch to her chest, the physical decay of the barn mirroring the collapse of her own life with a painful clarity.
She'd spent two years in Portland obscuring her personal wreckage, cloaking her collapsed marriage while she quietly carried on with her life.
She'd felt an intense dread of appearing broken alongside her sisters' blooming recoveries, choosing to lock her despair in a vault because she'd believed self-reliance was her only ticket to belonging.
Now, looking around the middle of the barn that held her mother’s secrets, she realized that everyone in this valley was hiding behind temporary shims and clever disguises.
The late matriarch had operated an underground system to shield fleeing women, altering titles and obscuring identities, all while expecting her own daughters to be independent.
She stood up, her resolve hardening as she gripped the steel square.
She refused to let the barn collapse, nor did she plan on letting her family's history remain buried in the shadows.
She'd rebuild the sills, secure the joists, and correct the foundation her own way, without relying on anyone else's systems or advice.
She would prove to her sisters, and to herself, that she was still the capable sister who could repair anything, even if it meant ignoring the little voice inside her telling her she should ask for help.
A noise from outside had Teddy tensing her shoulders and turning her head, half expecting to see Dahlia or Junie standing on the threshold with their color-coded charts and digital planners.
Instead, the doorway remained empty, the cool morning breeze carrying the gentle rustle of the orchard leaves outside.
She was alone with the dust and the rot, and it dawned on her that this was just where she wanted to be, in a place where she could use her hands to repair something.
When she had finished assessing the repairs needed, Teddy headed back to the farmhouse.
The kitchen was filled with the scent of toasted pecans and fresh coffee, a stark contrast to the cold dampness of the cider barn.
Dahlia occupied the wooden bench by the table, scanning a delivery log on her tablet.
Junie remained beside the stove, her shoulders loose as she stirred a pot of sugar syrup, her face bright with a peaceful ease.
Micah was good for her. Teddy crossed the room, the plan she'd sketched on heavy grid paper rolled tightly under her arm.
She was tense, the dust of the barn still clinging to her denim shirt, her jaw set in a hard line.
"The structural framework of the cider barn is compromised," Teddy announced.
Junie looked up, startled. “But it wasn’t that long ago that you repaired the roof.”
Teddy spread the gridded sheets across the oak table, her palms smoothing the curled edges flat against the wood. "The roof is still fine. The sill plates beneath the main columns are rotting, and the foundation has settled over three inches on the far wall."
Dahlia looked up from her digital logs, her expression shifting from calculation to thoughtful curiosity. "You've already completed the full assessment? You’ve hardly been back in the valley."
"I've been in the barn since dawn," Teddy replied, pointing out the red ink lines she'd drawn to mark the failing joists.
"Also, the main header in the equipment shed was notched to fit a newer door track, and the structural base is splintering under a load it was never designed to carry.
Not to mention, in the barn the floor joists under the old press are sagging, supported only by cedar blocks resting on wet earth.
The entire structure is on the verge of a major failure. "
Junie turned from the stove, her wooden spoon resting against the copper rim of the pot. "You're incredible. We managed two entire harvests here without realizing how close we were to a disaster. We were completely focused on the daily crowds and getting enough income to keep the farm running."
"That's because you weren't looking at the sills," Teddy said, without judgment. "You had a lot of other things to take care of."
"But that's why we're so glad you're here," Dahlia said, her tone smooth and encouraging as she leaned back in her chair.
"You're the expert. You have the training and the experience to handle a historic restoration.
We don't even know how to begin leveling a masonry foundation or replacing a sill. You’ve always been so good at fixing things. "
"We'll make sure you've whatever supplies you need," Junie added, her hand reaching out toward the sketch on the table. "Why don’t you coordinate the lumber orders, and we'll handle the daily farm stand operations so you can focus entirely on the repairs? It's a perfect division of labor."