Chapter Fifteen

“I can patch the roof after the storm passes. I guess I didn’t catch all the bad shingles up there this summer.” Curtis’ doubtful tone betrayed his words.

They stared at the hole above them, watching as large flakes fluttered down to melt on the carpet, the bed, the dresser. Pieces of ceiling, soggy insulation, mouse droppings and disintegrating wood shingles were in the middle of the floor. Meredith rubbed her arms against the icy chill and was thankful her five-year-old hadn’t been below the roof when it collapsed. She scooted Jamie to the bathroom to towel off her hair and then settled her in her own bed for the night.

Years of rot and neglect were catching up to her roof with moisture from snows and rains seeping farther inside every year. She pictured water dripping through the shingles and puddling in the attic space above their heads, turning her ceiling into mush. There had to be bigger problems brewing than one or two roof shingles. More of the ceiling would come down, either piece by piece or in one swift grand finale.

“The problem’s bigger than just a few shingles. I can’t afford a new roof. Or a new ceiling. Or any of the rest of it. This house is falling apart faster than I can deal with it.” She spat out the words in frustration. “I just need a bulldozer. But I can’t afford that either.”

Curtis bowed his head. Meredith waited for him to contradict her, to protest the roof was a minor repair and the rest of the house solid. The seconds ticked away before he answered, staring at the soiled carpet. “You know, demolition’s not a bad idea.”

She stared at him, aghast. “You expect me to knock down the only house we have? Then what? Pitch a tent? Build an igloo?”

He chewed his lip. “This house was built piecemeal from scraps and then left to rot over the years. My parents have a trailer I’m sure you could use. You could park it on your property.”

Tears sprang to her eyes. This was the only house she ever lived in. She’d swallowed her pride and paid Gemma the money Brian had cheated her out of for the deed to the house. She fought to stay there, in spite of everything, to give her children a secure home. She hung curtains and painted walls, scrubbed years of grime off the floors, and washed windows. No one knew how much having a home of her own meant to her. How could she have it destroyed? Not to mention living in a trailer with two young children through an Idaho winter was unthinkable.

“This is my house,” she whispered.

“Meredith. I’ll build you a new one. A better one.”

She gaped at him, watching as he grew more animated as the idea took hold in his mind.

His gaze roamed around the room, assessing. “I’ve been playing around with plans for another house. Bigger. Better than mine. High ceilings with open beams, cedar closets, a real cook’s kitchen. I can do construction on weekends and evenings. You can help.”

“What are you talking about? I can’t afford…I couldn’t let…”

Curtis broke in. “You can’t afford to keep this house the way it is. You have to do something. I can use some of the materials from this house, maybe. The windows. Some of the wood planks from the floor.” He stopped there and grabbed her hand. “Meredith, let me do this. Let me build a house for you.”

His eyes were bright and he was excited about the idea of building a house, any house at all. Of course, he knew she couldn’t afford to pay much of anything; she scarcely had enough money to live and keep up with bills. She paid Gemma for the house, all the money she could afford, and now it was falling down on their heads. No wonder the girl let the house go for a pittance. How could she let Curtis do something so big, so impressive for her? It was impossible. Her mind swirled and she forced herself to focus on one thing: the snow coming into Jamie’s bedroom. She would take her problems one step at a time, just as her meditation book advised.

She turned away from him so he wouldn't see her face. “I need to cover the hole.”

She felt his excitement ebbing into disappointment. They stood there for a moment, each glum in their own way. He gazed at the broken ceiling. “I can get up there with a tarp, keep the damp out for now. It’s not safe in here tonight. Not until the roof is fixed.”

She nodded. “Jamie can move into Atticus’s room.” She paused and flickered a glance at him. “I’ll think about your offer. Okay?”

As he studied her face, his lips made a slight curve. “Okay.”

****

She stared at the ceiling above her bed for hours that night, next to a kicking Jamie, wondering if the entire roof was going to come down on them while they slept. Every once in a while, she rose and walked through the house searching for any trace of collapse or water stains. Could it be possible Curtis had no idea how destitute she was? He had a stable well-paying job, family backing and minimal expenses. Perhaps he took it for granted when you needed money, ready funds just appeared from somewhere.

She read a storybook as a child where a woman had been given three wishes. There were likely more important wishes requested and granted, but Meredith only remembered one: a purse that never emptied of gold coins. A magic wallet would be my wish right now, she thought.

Even if Curtis labored for free, she couldn’t buy an entire house worth of materials. The wood, walls, a roof. There were two options: stay or go. If they stayed, she needed a full-time job and a way to repair the existing roof. She needed enough money to keep repairing problems continuing to crop up from this old house. It would be a constant drain, a money pit.

If they relocated again, as she should have after Brian’s death, she could put the house up for sale as-is. Someone else might buy the place for the land and have the money to knock the house down and start over. She would be free to look elsewhere for a job that would cover expenses. For a moment, this possibility gave her hope, a way to make things work for her children.

In a flash, she was back in Curtis’s arms and the memory was painful. It was a glimpse of what could have been, but no longer. She couldn’t let another man take over her life and liberty, not after Brian.

It was becoming clear she wasn’t destined to stay in Hay City. The world kept laying down signposts telling her to leave ever since she arrived. Brian’s murder. Gemma’s baby. Lack of a real job. A disintegrating house. Some people had an easier life than others. Her road had been difficult since the beginning, but she’d gotten tougher. She was young, healthy, and determined. Lots of people were just starting out at age twenty-four, launching successful careers and lives. There were plenty of people who thrived without a college degree. This wasn’t the end, just a new beginning, she encouraged herself. This was the road she was meant to travel.

There’s no reason I can’t start over again. It’s a big world.

****

There were some people who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

Honey stood at the door holding up a cloth-covered plate. “You can’t stay mad forever.”

Meredith grimaced at her, debating for a second whether she actually could.

“Oh, but it’s cold out here.” Honey lifted her shoulders in an exaggerated shiver. “Bitter.”

She opened the door wider, stepping to one side, and the woman hurried inside.

Honey pressed the plate into Meredith’s hands and shucked off her coat. “You have no idea what’s been brewing over at my place. Chaos.” Noting the rabbit hutch, she gave a nod. “Seems like you have a growing family, too.” She bustled into the kitchen and rummaged for four plates, paused, and then put two back. “Let’s the two of us have a chat until the kids discover we’re here eating sweet potato pie. I over planned for Thanksgiving and had to put three more pies in the freezer. Heavens knows what I was thinking.”

Meredith quietly put a kettle on the stove for tea, sensing her friend had something on her mind. The woman always did. She set out mugs and tea, and waited.

“Egan.” Honey huffed out his name. “He wants to marry my Gemma. She said yes, just as quick as you can blink your eye. Heaven help us all.”

Meredith swallowed. Just six months earlier, Gemma revealed her plans to marry Brian. The two would have made a perfect pair: deceitful, greedy, opportunists. She felt sorry for Egan. Less than a month ago, he didn’t even know where to find the girl and now they were engaged? For all his rough edges, he was probably a nice country boy underneath his unkempt beard.

“She’s marrying Egan? Does she even like him?”

The other woman’s tone was clipped, annoyed. “My granddaughter likes a man around admiring her. And turns out the young fellow got on at the mine at a good salary. She likes that, too. Anyway, he offered to adopt the baby. Thought you should know.”

The kettle began to whistle, the pitch high and screeching, and Meredith poured the water and dropped tea bags into the mugs, grateful for the interruption. She’d been nursing a hope that Gemma would go somewhere else far away, removing Brian’s baby from their lives. “Where would they live?”

“Not with me; I set them straight on that one, right away. They can go live with Egan’s land-grubbing family, and my granddaughter can learn another hard lesson in life.”

Honey’s lips pursed together, waiting. Meredith set the steaming mugs on the table, refusing to ask any questions about the apparent bad blood between the families. The other woman waited and when no reply came, heaved a sigh at being thwarted in gossiping about Egan’s family. She switched gears and her dumpling face lit up. “What does our sheriff think about what happened in Twin Lakes? Poison? Those men could have gotten themselves into something foolish, eating something gone spoiled. Some men just aren’t too fussy. Warm mayonnaise, half-cooked chicken, old eggs.”

Meredith was glad the subject was changed. She would far rather talk about death than about Gemma. “Curtis said the ground is frozen and they need to get more equipment up the mountain to exhume Jacob’s body.”

Her friend raised her eyebrows. “They say poison’s a woman’s weapon.”

“He isn’t calling it a crime.” Meredith couldn’t help adding, “Yet.”

“Murder begets murder. One, two, three,” Honey said in a whisper, leaning forward.

The woman’s eyes shone at this tidbit of gossip, the specter of a corpse exposed from its resting place and speculation about murder. Jamie rushed into the kitchen, demanding pie and cutting off the conversation. Atticus joined them and the next fifteen minutes was filled with chatter about rabbits as they wolfed down their pie.

“Will your baby goats sleep in your living room in the winter?” Jamie asked after scraping her plate clean.

“Oh no. I have a heater out in the barn for all the animals. They’re cozy all winter long. But no little kids until the spring. Kids are what we call baby goats.”

The young girl smiled to herself and Meredith knew her daughter would launch a spring offensive to get a baby goat. Her kids scampered off to play in Atticus’s room.

Honey carved off a second piece of pie for herself and Meredith refilled their mugs. Whatever the difficulties with her friend, it felt good to sit and share her distress with someone. “My roof’s coming down,” she shared. “There’s a hole in Jamie’s room covered with a tarp.”

Honey nodded as though she wasn’t surprised at all. “Life is two steps forward, one back.”

Meredith studied her tea, wondering if the older woman had always been full of aphorisms and folksy sayings. If an apocalyptic event occurred, Honey probably would have comforting words to say about that too. Right now, she needed solid advice and comfort, not empty words.

“I don’t think I’m getting the full two steps forward,” she said, certain she was due a little sympathy. Everything was going wrong at a time when it all should be going right. She found herself unburdening herself of her most recent problems; her collapsing house, her financial crisis, her need for a job. Any remaining frustrations she had with her friend thawed the more she talked. It was soothing to talk to someone who enjoyed listening to one’s troubles.

“You can’t expect to get them all at one time,” Honey explained with a shrug. “At some points in our lives, it’s five or six steps back and then, all in a rush, seven or eight or ten steps forward. You’ll see.” Honey served herself another slice of pie.

“I hope someone up there is keeping track for me.”

The woman gave her a stern look. “I made a mess of my life a ways back. You know, I had a thing for bad boys back in my day. I didn’t like being told what to do and, my goodness, there was this one boy in school who broke all the rules. Of course, he had to be the boy for me.” She shook her head, her expression grim at the memory of her teenaged self. “I was pregnant my senior year of high school and proud of it, stupid girl that I was.”

Meredith tried to imagine a teenage Honey and could only picture a round full-hipped girl with large shoulders who wouldn’t let anyone boss her around.

“I lost that one but was pregnant again inside of six months. You’d think we’d have learned a lesson. Ha, not a chance. We ran off, got married and…Shorty…” She spat out the name… “built us this house. Judith, Gemma’s mother, was born.”

Honey leaned forward on the table and her voice lowered to a hiss. “You know what happens to bad boys when they grow up? They become bad men. There were no steps forward for me back then, none at all. I was pregnant again when he set fire to the house. Miscarried.”

She paused in her story, lost in its telling. A bad marriage. A violent end. Two babies gone. She leaned back again, her voice softening. “I was all prepared to tell you about Gemma and your husband, the first time I came to your house to visit. But then I saw your little ones and the bruises on you and saw myself all over again. History was repeating itself, right here in the same house, and I knew what was coming next. You deserved better.”

Meredith sat frozen in her seat. The doubts she had about the woman being involved in Brian’s murder were always at the forefront. “Honey,” she started, but her tongue thickened in her mouth. How do you ask a friend, your best friend, whether she was behind the murder of your husband? Would she ever be able to put the suspicion to rest?

Honey brightened. “Milt arrived just in time. He was a friend of the family. Tall and big like me. He just swept me off my feet. Some people might call it a boomerang romance, but it sure bounced me into the right arms. I never had a bad day with my sweet Milt.” She wiped at a tear and stood, scraping back her chair from the table, indicating their chat was over.

“You just get your chin up, girl,” she said. “Your time is now. A hole in your roof? Heavens. It’s not the end of the world.”