The Renovation

by Terri Kraus

  Cameron felt an ache in her heart and scolded herself for feeling it.

  The other picture, the same size and framed to match, featured all three of them, at a park, during a bright summer day. Chase, no more than three at the time, sat on his father’s lap as his mother stood behind them, proud, happy, content. Again Cameron felt that ache, but this time it was for Chase, and for Ethan as well—an ache for what they both had lived and had lost.

  She was hardly conscious of the movement, but she brought her hand up to that picture and placed it ever so gently on the image of Chase and his father and mother.

  She turned and walked to the front door again, echoes of ghosts in her thoughts, faint images of what this house once held and would hold no more.

  Perhaps on the twentieth circuit, or maybe the fiftieth, Cameron stopped and stared hard down Otter Street. A set of cone-shaped headlights angled at the corner; a vehicle slowed. From the illumination of the streetlight midway down the block, Cameron knew it was a truck—a dark-colored truck … Ethan’s truck. It came gradually to the curb. Perhaps the driver saw Cameron’s car and slowed down sooner, confused or concerned.

  Cameron took a huge breath, opened the door, and hurried off the porch, making sure the driver could see her. Half-waving her hand in the cold darkness, she smiled so he would know everything was all right.

  “Ethan,” she called out, not loud—not too loud, anyhow.

  “Cameron, what are you doing here?”

  He was at the sidewalk now, holding a grocery bag in his arms.

  The grocery store. I never would have thought to go past the grocery store.

  “I came over looking for my calendar, Ethan … my PDA. I think I left it in your truck. I knocked on the door and Chase saw that it was just me. I told him what I needed, and he invited me in to wait for you.”

  She could see a flicker of something in Ethan’s eyes.

  “He said that he knows the rules, but I promised that I wasn’t a burglar. He said you would be right back.”

  Ethan appeared to be about to say something, but it also appeared that whatever it was did not fit that moment … did not fit it at all.

  “Ethan, I don’t want to interfere. I really don’t. It’s not really my business … but Chase had offered me a cup of tea and then he showed me around the house. He knew I was interested in architecture. And, Ethan, he showed me his secret room.”

  “Secret room?” Ethan asked, shifting the grocery bag from one arm to the other. Cameron could see a loaf of bread in the bag, and maybe a half-gallon of milk.

  “Just through his closet. It must run under the eaves on that side.” She pointed.

  Ethan nodded. “I … knew that was there. I guess. He never mentioned …”

  Cameron took a step closer to him. She had told herself she wouldn’t, but she did, and placed her hand on Ethan’s arm. “He showed me what he’s been hiding all these years, Ethan.”

  Ethan waited.

  “It was the hockey jersey that his mother bought him that day in Erie. The day that she was … when it happened.”

  Ethan didn’t speak. He didn’t move, really, but she could tell he was staring at the ground. After a long moment, he looked at her and said, “I never knew what happened to it. The police gave it to me. I guess Chase found it. I thought it was gone. I thought I threw it away. I wanted to throw it away.”

  Now.

  Cameron moved her hand slowly on his arm. “Ethan, he thinks that you blame him for her murder. He thinks you hold him responsible for his mother’s death.”

  A moment passed.

  “He said that?”

  “Ethan, he did. I know you don’t. But he said you two never talked about what happened that day. He says you’re angry and that’s how he knows you believe he was the cause of it all.”

  Ethan’s lips were pressed tight together. “I never talked about it … because … I thought it would hurt too much. I thought … it would be better for Chase that way.”

  Now.

  Cameron stood beside him and put her arm around him. “Ethan, you have to talk about this with him. You have to tell him it’s not his fault.”

  She could see a tear course down his cheek.

  “All this time? He really thought I held him responsible?”

  She nodded.

  Now.

  “You need to talk to him. He’s asleep—but you need to wake him up and tell him.”

  “It’s too late, Cameron.”

  Now.

  “Ethan, you had a right to your anger. Anger over what happened and anger over the fact that she died that way. But you have to give up that anger. Give it up, Ethan. For you and for Chase. It insulates you too well. Let go of the past. It’s not too late. It’s never too late.”

  Ethan shifted the bag in his arms again. “Okay. Come inside with me.”

  Cameron looked at her feet. She wanted so much to go back inside with Ethan … but she also feared it … what it could mean for their relationship.

  “Please?” She took in the pain and sadness on Ethan’s face.

  Then she slipped her hand in his, and the two of them walked up the stairs together.

  Cameron sat in the kitchen and made another cup of tea. She added three teaspoons of real sugar to the cup—a forbidden, but wonderful, pleasure.

  She sat and sipped at the sweet tea, not moving, save to look about the kitchen and imagine Ethan’s wife here … to see what she had so wanted him to change in the room. She imagined the scent of macaroni and cheese in the evening, of toast in the morning, of brownies baking in the afternoon. She saw Lynne play-chasing a wispy-haired toddler around the kitchen, making airplane motions to feed him in a high chair at this table.

  The creaking of steps brought her back to the present.

  Ethan walked in, his eyes red. But he was smiling.

  “He’s asleep again. He showed me what was in the wooden footlocker.”

  Cameron reached out and took his hand. “I’m sorry. I know that it must be hard.”

  “Thanks. But what was hard is that he was alone with it all these years. He carried that pain all alone. I never knew. I never understood. I was so wrapped up in my own pain.…”

  She squeezed his hand.

  “I told him I forgive him. I told him how much I love him.”

  More tears fell.

  “And he told me how he talked to God tonight.”

  Ethan wiped his eyes. “Cameron, thank you.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Cam?”

  She looked up into his eyes.

  “Will you … can you … forgive me? For being so stupid. For being … so … angry. So selfish and foolish and stubborn. Can you?” Ethan asked, his words, tender, soft, heartfelt.

  She waited less than a heartbeat, then rushed to open her arms and embrace him and hold him in the fiercest, most earnest, most crushing embrace she had ever given anyone, ever before.

  Compassion is … the knowledge

  that there can never really be

  any peace and joy for me

  until there is peace and joy finally for you too.

  —Frederick Buechner

  Forgiveness is

  giving up the possibility

  of a better past.

  —unknown

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  CECE CARTER MORETTI HAD promised to put on the biggest, grandest, most amazing open house Franklin had ever seen.

  And she did.

  Ethan and his crew finished the last bits and pieces of the project just after Easter—and Easter was exceptionally late that year.

  “No matter,” CeCe had insisted. “The work went on way too long, but now that it’s do
ne, I’m so happy with it. It was worth it all. Everything turned out terrific.”

  The third-floor ballroom glistened, decorated by Tessa Winberry with elaborate arrangements of spring flowers and scores of candles. It was filled with Franklin’s finest and the best and most beautiful. There was even a scattering of tuxedos—something the town of Franklin seldom saw outside of weddings.

  The mayor was on hand to offer a speech of dedication—or “rededication” as he remarked, and a toast: “The Carter name and Franklin go hand in hand. We are so proud to have a Carter back in the Carter Mansion. Here’s to Mrs. CeCe Carter Moretti and her remarkable vision in restoring this gem of a house. May it stand proudly for another hundred years.”

  The crowd broke out into applause at that, and if the mayor had further remarks to make, he thought it best to go out on a positive note and simply bowed to the homeowner.

  CeCe beamed the entire evening. She had vindicated her grandfather’s name and reputation. The house was beautiful and she said she could see his pride showing through.

  Even if she had changed some of the original lines, Ethan thought.

  He wore a new tie that evening, as did Joel, Jack, and several members of the crew. Doug wore a new sport coat over a black T-shirt and slacks—and for him that was excessively well dressed, almost to the formal level.

  Seldom had any of the crew been invited to an event like this, where they were made to feel almost like celebrities. Ethan’s crew had all been asked to sign a plaque, which was going to be hung in the entry, giving credit to each man who had worked on the long project.

  Ethan saw that as a touch of real class.

  CeCe brought in a disc jockey for the evening. She would have used a real band, but few bands in Venango County could play Italian love songs and standards from the ’40s—the music she loved—along with polkas and old Broadway theme songs.

  The music started thumping as Ethan made his way down to the first floor. CeCe hurried around, encouraging her guests to eat more.

  “Mangia, mangia!” she said as she herded them toward the food. She had spread every surface in the kitchen, which did look like one in a Tuscan villa, with platter after platter of Italian dishes—from linguini with clams to homemade mushroom ravioli with bits of green stuff, which Cameron informed Ethan was arugula, tossed in with its cream sauce.

  Ethan headed to the lavish dessert table in the dining room and passed up the tiramisu and cannoli for the biscotti platter. He took two, slipped out the front door, and stood on the porch, now brought back to its original resplendence, taking in deep breaths of the cold, spring air. After every invoice had been presented and every bill had been paid, Ethan had wound up with a grand profit of a few thousand dollars. It wasn’t much—much less than he had planned, and much less than it could have been, had he not been so headstrong. But with all the publicity, well—he imagined he’d do pretty well in the long run.

  Even though he disagreed with some of the final design, it was CeCe’s house after all. And on this project, he’d learned a lot about himself—and restoration—in the process.

  Everyone did seem to love it.

  With a few dollars’ profit, and all the recognition this job had given Ethan, he knew it was okay to hope for a better summer than he had seen in years.

  Cameron followed Ethan out onto the porch. She didn’t say a word but simply slipped her arm around him and held him close, the two of them, alone, side by side. He put his arm around her shoulder in response. Dozens of votives that lined the railings flickered in the crisp breeze.

  “Where’s Chase?”

  “Where else? At Elliot’s. He didn’t think this would be his sort of party.”

  The music’s bass line vibrated inside and upstairs. Laughter and loud conversations echoed over the beat.

  Ethan didn’t speak for a long time. At last he said, “I wanted to thank you, Cam. I don’t think I did—at least not for this.”

  She squeezed him harder. “For what?”

  “For being a roadmap.”

  She dropped her arm and turned to face him, her face a puzzle. “A roadmap? I’ve been called a lot of things, but never a map before.”

  He took her hands. She could see the seriousness in his eyes.

  “You showed me the way to make it right. No one else could have done that. You showed me something in my son that I never saw, or even suspected. You were the one who really knew what he needed. And you showed me how to get there too.”

  He dropped her hands and stepped to the railing. He looked out over the river, over the lights of Franklin.

  “I held on to the past too tightly, Cam. I held on to what wasn’t there anymore. And I was angry—angry at everyone who didn’t suffer like me.”

  She came up behind him and encircled his waist with her arms. “It’s okay, Ethan. I understand.” She rested her head against him. “We both needed forgiveness.”

  He turned and embraced her firmly. “Thanks for showing me the way back to God.”

  Under her breath, she whispered, “You’re welcome.”

  Anger makes you smaller,

  while forgiveness forces you

  to grow beyond what you were.

  —Cherie Carter-Scott

  Forgiveness does not change the past,

  but it does enlarge the future.

  —Paul Boese

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-THREE

  CHASE, LIKE EVERY OTHER student in school, waited with great anticipation for summer to begin. To a fourteen-year-old, those three months stretched out before him like an endless, golden paradise.

  He stood in his front yard and waited. He held his new baseball glove, a first-baseman’s mitt, personally autographed—a real signature with a Sharpie pen—by the Philadelphia Phillies’ current first baseman, Greg Dobbs.

  Miss Dane had gotten the glove for him from her older brother, William, as she’d promised.

  “I know some people put these kinds of things on a shelf and hope they’ll become more valuable over time,” she said when he had unwrapped the gift. “But I want you to use this. Greg Dobbs wants you to use it. It’ll be more valuable if you use it—otherwise, it’s just a piece of leather with writing on it.”

  Chase did not have to be asked again. It was a cool glove and a cool autograph—even if he really didn’t like the Phillies all that much. This season he planned on watching some of their games, though. After all, he had that glove. And Cameron was from Philadelphia. So was his mom.

  Cameron pulled up to the curb in her car. She waved as she walked up to the house. She wore jean shorts, a T-shirt, and sneakers, and her hair was gathered in a ponytail of loose curls. Best of all, she carried her own glove.

  “But it’s a softball glove,” Chase had said the first time he saw it.

  Cameron had shrugged. “It still works. Don’t worry about it.”

  He tossed her the baseball as she jogged across the sidewalk. She flipped it back to him, a little harder than he had thrown to her.

  No sense in being pampered, she thought.

  “Hey, not so hard,” Chase said, joking, but not really joking.

  “Can’t take a pitch from a girl?” she called back.

  And in the afternoon sunshine, the two of them tossed the baseball back and forth, without really talking, but with great contentment.

  Ethan’s truck rumbled up the street and he jumped out, calling, “Hey, Danish, let me borrow your mitt.”

  She laughed, tossed it to him, and retreated to the shade of the porch. She pulled up the wicker rocker and sat, rocking slowly, as the two of them, father and son, threw the ball between them. She could see where Chase got his pacing and rhythm—everything he did was echoed in Ethan’s movements … the long arm, the graceful pitch, the quick reflexes.
The two had a balance, a harmony between them.

  Every few pitches, one or the other would turn with a smile toward the shadows of the porch, looking for Cameron’s face, as if asking for something. Was it validation? Approval? Each time Cameron would smile back. A comfortable smile … a welcoming, accepting smile.

  After awhile, after both were sweaty and thirsty, Ethan called it quits. His son walked toward him, and the father placed his arm over his son’s shoulders as they walked to the porch.

  “Let’s get something to drink.”

  Ethan stood by the rocking chair and Cameron stood too. He embraced her tenderly and gave her a quick, happy kiss.

  If anyone had watched Chase’s face at that moment, they would have seen a look that combined a good measure of emotional disgust at their public display of affection with an equal amount of pure joy and absolute, complete satisfaction.

  Though no one can go back

  and make a brand new start,

  anyone can start from now

  and make a brand new ending.

  —Carl Bard

  Forgiveness is the

  highest, most beautiful

  form of love.

  —Robert Muller

  EPILOGUE

  CAMERON RAN UP THE brick walk of the Willis home. She yanked the screen door open and ran into the kitchen.

  Ethan and Chase both looked up from the table, their eyes and faces welcoming her, smiling—one as wife, one as mother—all three tanned from their week at the beach on the Delaware coast.