family

A Delicate Situation

She stepped onto the starlit deck to catch her breath, a cold gust of wind hitting her squarely in the face. She gulped it greedily, the sharp frosty needles prickling her throat and lungs, seeking absolution for what she had done. What had begun as an innocent flirtation three weeks ago had morphed into something else. With an older man. A much older man. And with her mother’s good friend, no less. She glanced quickly at the other guests around the table inside, oblivious to what had just transpired in the kitchen.

***

She had known him for most of her life. Every summer her family would relocate to the lake house development where he was a handyman. While she ran through the sprinklers and slurped Popsicles with her two best friends, he would quietly fix broken pipes, repair planking on neighboring decks, and stack firewood against the main community lodge where families gathered for picnics and outdoor movies. He was a nondescript presence that existed only on the periphery of her sun-kissed summer escapades.

Time passed and her brother went off to college. Then her sister. Then her. Her parents divorced. Her mother moved to the lake house development full-time to pursue painting and a bohemian lifestyle – the one she claimed her familial duties robbed her of all those years ago. Her father stayed in Minneapolis, earning a partnership at the law firm where he worked and remarrying a paralegal. She married her college boyfriend.

Her mother became a successful painter and bohemian, often entertaining other artists for weeks at a time with an endless parade of food, wine, and weed-fueled parties. Between part-time jobs and graduate school, she visited her mother less frequently, barely aware that the handyman and her mother had become close friends. He was still a shadowy presence that existed only on the periphery of her busy grown-up life.

At 35, she was divorced and in debt. The sluggish economy had rendered her Master’s degree nearly useless and she reluctantly accepted her mother’s offer to join her at the lake house for the summer. Depressed and out of options, she loaded her clothing, books, yoga mat, and dog into her luxury SUV, (paid for by the divorce,) and headed north.

She took nearly a month to decompress from the stress of her previous life. Sleeping late, rarely eating, leaving the house only to walk the dog, it was all she could do just to get dressed. Eventually, she noticed the handyman who stopped by to have coffee with her mother on the front porch every day. She overheard them talking about the weather, gossiping about the other residents, and deciding whether or not the community dock should be repaired by the association.

One morning she blithely joined them on the porch, curling her long legs beneath her as she settled into the wicker loveseat on the far side of the porch with a hot cup of coffee. Silently she watched as he picked at his jeans, ran his fingers through his thinning hair. Her mother and he talked animatedly about the Fourth of July picnic. He was a lively presence that now existed on her mother’s front porch.

Discreetly she observed her mothers interactions with the other men who came and went. Friendly, encouraging, helpful – yes, but she didn’t appear to be anymore flirtatious with one more than the other. She finally gathered the courage to ask her mother if she was dating any of them. Yes, was the reply. The architect down the road.

At the Fourth of July picnic, emboldened by cheap beer, she approached the handyman. I hardly know you but I’ve known you most of my life. Isn’t that weird, she asked him with a teasing grin. Not really, he replied with an engaging smile and turned to join the others near the bonfire. Curiosity peaked, she vowed to be more vocal during their coffee sessions.

***

She had accepted his request for help in the kitchen knowing what it could lead to, yet she politely excused herself from the table anyway. The other party guests were drunkenly chatting away in the other room when he came up behind her and gently kissed her on the neck while she was slicing pie. She turned to face him, kissing him urgently while his hands pulled her close to his warm body. Abruptly she pushed him away and calmly walked through the dining room and out onto the deck.

Victorian Secrets

Prompt: A character discovers an object hidden away many years ago in a family home. (from “642 Things to Write About“, by the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto)

The faded old house sat atop a hill near the center of town. It hadn’t always been faded, and it hadn’t always been near the center of town. When it was built at the turn of the 20th century it had been one of the grandest homes in the area. Trimmed with the ornate, gingerbread cutouts of the Victorian era, a wide porch that encircled three quarters of the house, and painted in rich hues – burgundy, ocher, a deep forest green – it had been many things throughout the past 125 years, but it had always been in the Pennington family.

Doug Pennington, aged 53 and heir to the dwindling Pennington fortune, stood before the once-grand home contemplating – or perhaps regretting – his decision to move to this small, trendy, Rocky Mountain mining town to open his new restaurant. His plan seemed simple (and rational) at the time; take possession of the family home that had been left to him, convert the lower two floors into his New American Bistro, and live on the top floor. He had been warned of the buildings decrepit state, but he had no idea it was this bad. He carefully mounted the rotting porch steps and unlocked the front door.

Leaving his bags in the entryway he began a cursory exploration of the house. Once inside, he was relieved to see that most of the wear and tear was cosmetic. The roof was still in one piece, albeit sagging in a few places, and most of the floorboards were still sound. A few windows had been patched over the years, but other than that, the house was in remarkably good condition considering it hadn’t been lived in for four years. His great-grandmother Hildy had been the last inhabitant and once she passed, it sat empty until he bravely climbed the front steps only moments ago, finally claiming his inheritance from the family matriarch.

Carefully Doug removed dust covered sheets from antique furniture, surveying each piece to determine what could be re purposed for the restaurant while eerily aware of the intermittent scurrying in the walls. He began to make a mental note of what needed to be done before he could begin setting up shop: exterminator, carpenter, roofer. Stephen and their daughter Lily would be arriving in a few days and he needed to at least make the place somewhat habitable before they saw it. This house was a far cry from the mid-century jewel they had left behind in Palm Springs.

***

“We’re here, dad,” Lily cried as she bravely climbed the front porch steps.

“I’m in the kitchen. Come through the front door and take a left,” Doug answered.

“Good Lord,” Stephen exclaimed when he stepped into the kitchen with Lily. “This is going to be a much larger project that we anticipated. Look at this place.”

“You should have seen it three days ago. At least you can move now without poofs of dust choking you with every step. Really, it’s not as bad as it seems. The fumigator will be here tomorrow, and I’ve already met with the architect and general contractor. Once we’re free of vermin, we can start workiing,” Doug replied. “I’ve already set-up makeshift bedrooms upstairs.”

Lily and Stephen exchanged glances, dubious of Doug’s claim that “it really wasn’t that bad.” They had both lived through multiple restaurant projects and rarely did they finish on time and on budget. But they had faith in Doug, despite his crippling optimism.

***

“Uh, Mr. Pennington, Doug, sir? You better come see this.”

It was a phrase all three of them were beginning to dread each time the carpenter contracted to refinish the floors uttered it. First it had been a family of raccoons that had somehow managed to escape the fumigator, then it was a whole section of moldy floorboards under the cast-iron bathtub in the downstairs bathroom. Yesterday, he informed them that the entire dining room floor had been laid with different wood than the rest of the bottom two floors. Wood that was of poor quality and couldn’t be refinished.

“What now,” Doug muttered under his breath to Lily, who was pulling up the runner on the stairs – or at least attempting to. The fabric practically fell apart in her hands and she was struggling to get most of it into a large, black plastic trash bag before it turned to dust.

“It’s probably nothing dad, just a landmine, or dead body, or something like that. No big deal.”

“Very funny,” he said and headed into the pantry where the floor man was working.

“I found this when I pulled up the boards in here. Looks to be a bundle of some kind. Thought you should take a look at it.” He handed Doug a medium-sized bunch of heavy canvas like the kind used for old mining tents.

Carefully, he unrolled the package. It smelled of mildew and had been stained in places with rust. When the canvas was finally unfurled, he saw that it contained a hacksaw and heavy mallet, both of which also had been stained by rust. The teeth on the hacksaw were still sharp, and the mallet was heavy in his hand.

Upon closer inspection he realized that both were covered with blotchy dark spots, not rust like he had originally thought. With a shudder he realized the family stories had more truth to them than not, and that Lilly had no idea how right – symbolically, at least – she had been. These tools were both proof of a dead body, perhaps multiple bodies, and the landmine would blow his remaining family apart.

He quickly rolled the tools back up in the canvas. “Doesn’t look like anything but some old tools,” he told the constructor worker. “Maybe I can use them for decoration or something. Thanks for showing these to me,” and he calmly walked into the hallway where he took the stairs two at a time to their living quarters above leaving Lilly to struggle with the carpet alone.