“If you don’t mind…”
Rachel stopped by to pick up Dani on the way out to Jaycee and Derek’s. Sliding into the old golden car, Dani grinned. “Hey beautiful.”
Rachel laughed. “Well, someone’s in a good mood.”
“Of course. What’s there not to be in a good mood about?”
By the time Eric and Greg arrived at Derek’s, the others were already gathered.
“Thanks for looking at that,” Greg said. “It makes me feel a whole lot better. I hate coming in at the last minute. I always feel like I’m going to miss something major and the whole thing’s going to collapse.”
Eric clapped his hand on Greg’s shoulder. “I don’t think I did that much, but you’re welcome. The least I could do for all the hospitality and the enchiladas you’ve fed me.”
Greg laughed. “I’m going to miss the bacon on Saturday mornings.”
“You and me both, brother. You and me both.”
Together they went into the house without even knocking. They found the others in the living room, blueprints of each room at Attabury divided up among them.
“Great. You’re here,” Caleb said, glancing at Derek. “You want to do this?”
However, Derek shook his head. “It’s all yours, bro.”
Caleb didn’t look overly confident about it, but he accepted the position just the same. “Okay. So we have a few things to discuss. Couple of questions for Eric and Dani. Then we’ll see where we’re at and go from there.” He nodded to get more words out. “First issue, is staging the house for the reveal. Most of the time we make this decision, but we’re not sure how you guys feel about it, so we thought we’d run it by you first. H&H likes the final reveal to have the furniture and selections in place. So rugs and lamps, beds, artwork, that kind of thing. There’s a company out of Raleigh we can get to come in and stage it, but we wanted to make sure that was all right with the two of you.”
Dani looked to Eric who looked back.
“Yeah,” Eric said, opening his hands. “I mean, we don’t have a houseful of furniture other than what we have back home.”
“Okay,” Caleb said. “Well, right now, the plan is to have the stagers come in Thursday, and we’ll do the reveal sometime on Friday. We’d rather do it mid-morning or mid-day if possible, but I know you have work and Jaden’s school.”
Again Dani looked to him. He thought through his work schedule.
“I think we can swing it,” he said. “It’s not like I’ll get fired over the deal.”
Caleb nodded. “And Jaden?”
“She’s only missed that one day,” Eric said to Dani who nodded, and he turned back to Caleb. “I think that’ll work too.”
“Good. Great. Then we’ve only got the finishing up to go, and we’ll be good to go.”
A second and Greg raised his hand. “I do have one thing.”
“Sure,” Caleb said, sweeping his hand as if to give Greg the floor.
Greg looked over at Eric. “Well, I’ve been wondering what you wanted to do with the money, that cash we found in the mattress. I put it in my safe deposit box when we found it, and it’s fine there, but…”
Eric pinched his lips together and looked at Dani. “We’ve kind of talked about it, but without knowing exactly what it is. I mean it could be worthless for all we know.”
Taking a quick look at his watch, Greg let out a breath. “We could go over there now, look at it a little closer if you want.”
They glanced at each other, and Eric nodded. “That sounds like a plan.”
Greg’s pickup had no more gotten out of the driveway when Caleb jerked around toward Dani.
“Ugh. I forgot to ask,” he said, his gaze holding on her.
She dropped her head and raised her eyebrows at him, pretty sure she wasn’t going to like whatever this was. “Yes?”
He deflated. “It’s just that… Well, we never really settled on what to do with that back room, the one by the kitchen. I meant to ask, but I forgot.”
The servant’s quarters. Dani heard the words without him saying them.
“We used that one side corner for the central heat and air, but…”
Even as she sat, holding the blueprints for the upstairs on the couch next to Rachel, Dani could feel everyone’s unease at the question. They somehow were both looking at her and decidedly not. She lifted her chin, unwilling to be bowed by the question. “What do you think our options are?”
Caleb glanced over at Derek. “Well, we’d talked about maybe making it a storage room for the kitchen. We could put shelving in there and call it a pantry.”
Dani’s eyebrows reached for the ceiling. “That would be an awful big pantry. How much food do you think we need?”
With a hollow laugh, Caleb shrugged. “I was thinking about using that space down by the heater as a large closet for cleaning supplies and stuff anyway. We could wall it off without much trouble and put some shelves in it. But that still leaves that whole rest of the room. We were scared to take that wall out as it’s what’s holding up the upstairs, but maybe we just should’ve done that.”
A glance at Rachel and Jaycee who looked a half-step-away from speechless, and Dani took a long breath and blinked slowly, letting herself think about the possibilities of the room rather than the current reality of it. As she let her thoughts spin, her breathing deepened, and she could see her great-grandmother, settled in the room, going about her day between it and the kitchen. Although Dani had always felt the thought in a way that made her angry, she now saw it in a more peaceful light. She looked around at the others. “What about making it a sitting room?”
Caleb looked at first surprised and then concerned. “Explain that.”
“Well,” Dani said, liking the idea more and more, “just a place we could go to…” She grinned and looked at Rachel, “have a Bible study or talk or read or… just be.” The idea was growing wings inside her. “And maybe in that closet of yours, we could put some things for Jaden’s crafting. That could be her own special room, and I could go in and have a cup of coffee while she dreams and creates a new world for all of us.” She nodded. “I like that idea. I really do.”
Rachel put her hand over on Dani’s and squeezed. “So do I.”
“So how are the bridges coming along?” Greg asked as they drove to Greely.
“Coming. Demo finished on one of them last week.” Eric settled down in the seat, glad for some downtime. “I guess it’s a fight to the finish no matter where you are.”
“Tell me about it.” Greg put his fingers up to his mouth. “It’s so weird to think about, you know? Retirement’s on the horizon for me now, and I look back over the projects and all the things I’ve worked on, and it’s not that I’m not proud of them. But I guess I see how temporary it all is. Last week they told me they were demoing the inside of a gym we remodeled 25 years ago—starting over. In my mind that gym is brand new, but to them, it’s old and needs to be updated.”
“Hm. Never really thought about it like that.”
“Call it what you want, but I used to think what I was doing would matter, that it would somehow live forever. But now I see that stuff just… doesn’t, and maybe it’s not supposed to. Maybe the world marches on for a reason.”
“I hear you. A couple of weeks ago, I started seeing my work different than I used to.”
“How so?”
“Well, I used to see it as trading my skills for the money they would pay me for them. I went to work for the paycheck. It’s not that I didn’t want to do a good job or try to, but I didn’t really think of it in terms of the lives I was impacting.”
“Hmm. Like?”
“Like building the bridges. Because of me, a guy those people will never know or hear of, that bridge is structurally sound, so they can go to work and home and church and school in complete safety, never so much as thinking about how much easier that path was made for them.” Eric nodded. “It’s like that school gym. Sure, it’s easy to see that and th
ink what you did wasn’t worth it, but think about the kids that played in that gym because you used your skills to get it built. Think about that kid who remembers the game-winning shot he took in that gym. He doesn’t know you or remember you, but because of your work, he remembers that moment.”
Greg grinned. “Now you’re starting to sound like the pastor.”
The laugh felt good. “It’s a way of looking at life that I never really had before, and now that I see it that way, it’s hard not to. Even like…” He stopped the words at the last possible second, hoping Greg wouldn’t pick up on them.
“Like?” Greg asked, and Eric knew he’d blown his promise to Dani.
Taking a breath, he sorted out how to say it. “Well, don’t tell anybody or anything, but Dani and I’ve been talking a little bit about moving over here, to Attabury.”
That lit across Greg’s face. “Really?”
“Yeah, but don’t get too excited.” Eric put up his hands. “We’re not even sure it would be possible. There’s the selling the house thing and the moving thing, not to even mention the fact that neither of us even have a job out here.”
Greg’s nod was slow. “But if you did?”
Eric shrugged. “I won’t lie to you. It’s tempting to try even without things lined up, but like I was saying before it’s this whole new way of thinking about things, about how God works even when we’re not aware of it or paying attention or whatever. So, Dani and I are praying about it, and we’ll see what God has in mind.”
When they got to the bank, Eric had to take a breath at the size of the thing. It was like no bank he had ever seen before. For one thing, it sat on its own lot that was maybe a few acres in size. For another it was a single story with a circle drive plus one small parking lot off to the side. Somehow he had pictured a multi-story building with glassed in edges and a parking garage. Of course, that was ridiculous since he’d been to Greely and had never noticed such a building. In fact, such a building would have stuck out like a sore thumb hit by a hammer.
Inside, Greg didn’t so much as stop before he was at the door to an office off to the side. He knocked and the guy behind the desk, a Scott Fanagrey stood to greet him. “Greg. How’s it going?”
“Great. Great.” After shaking Scott’s hand, Greg turned to Eric and clapped him on the back. “Scott, I’d like you to meet Eric Richardson. He and his wife are remodeling the old Attabury house back in Ridgemount.”
“Oh.” Understanding struck in the man’s eyes as he shook Eric’s hand when Eric transferred the laptop to the other hand. “That is quite a project so I hear.”
Eric laughed. “Yeah. I hear that too.”
Together they all laughed for a second.
Once again, Greg took over the conversation from the younger men. “We were wanting to see that safe deposit box.” He looked around. “Do you have a room we could use?”
“Oh, certainly. No problem.”
In minutes, Scott stepped into the small conference room with the box. He unlocked his side of it and set it on the table. Going to the door, he checked his watch. “We’re going to be closing in about an hour. Will that be enough time?”
“Should be,” Greg said, digging his key from his pocket.
“Let us know if you need anything.”
“We will.”
When the door closed, Greg nodded at Eric’s silver laptop. “Why don’t you fire that thing up? I think we’ll be able to see pretty quick here if this stuff is worth anything or not.”
Excitement bled through every vein in Dani when they finished the lacquer on the little desk. It looked as shiny and beautiful as the first day it had been used.
“So any idea on the story of this thing?” Rachel asked, looking at the completion of her hours of work.
“Not sure.” Dani folded her arms. “I wonder about that hiding place though. Hazel must have known it was there and known nobody else did. But the diary never really says anything about it.”
“What does it talk about?”
“Mostly big stuff that happened in her life.” Dani sat down on the little ledge of the shop with Rachel, neither overly rushed to get to whatever the next thing was. “The day she found out her mom died, Mr. Attabury’s accident, things like that.” Dani shook her head. “I don’t think either of them ever really recovered from it.”
Slipping her hands to the ledge and pushing up so her shoulders came up to her ears, Rachel nodded slowly. “Stuff is like that sometimes. I went to Virginia to be with Nathan one person, and by the time I came back here, I was somebody completely different.”
Dani considered that. “So would you change it? If you could? Would you change all the stuff that happened?”
The answer didn’t come immediately. “I’m starting to see that everything teaches you something. The good stuff. The bad stuff. Even the everyday stuff. It’s not so much that it happens for a reason as that it happens, and you have to choose how to see it and how to deal with it. You can let those tragedies make you or break you, and I have to be honest, a few of the ones I went through broke me. But even in that, there are lessons.”
“Like what?”
“Like people come at life from their own perspective, and sometimes what you think of as them being mean to you is just a matter of how they’re looking at it. Like Nathan’s parents.” She looked down at her hands and let out a breath. “They hated me. From minute one. And they never did figure out how to get over that. For a long time I was really bitter about them and how they treated me. But now I see that when they closed their hearts to me, they also closed it to their two grandbabies. That wasn’t my doing. It was theirs. So in a lot of ways now, I feel sorry for them because they’ll never have the joy of watching those two children of their son’s grow up.”
“I think the more you can let go and try to see things from the other person’s perspective, the more you can let go of judging them,” Dani said. “I know with Hazel, Mrs. Attabury, I grew up hating her. She was the wicked witch of North Carolina or worse. The thing is, I didn’t even know her, had never even laid eyes on her, but because of what my mom said about her, I thought it made perfect sense to hate her. She was ‘the oppressor.’” Dani put finger quotes around the words. “Now I see, she was just a woman trying to deal with a life she didn’t really choose. I’ve thought about her last words, ‘forgive us, forgive us, forgive us…’ There was a time, I would have gladly punched out her lights or screamed at her about how awful and hateful she was. Now I see I was the one who was awful and hateful toward a woman I didn’t even know.”
“The more I get that,” Rachel said, “the more the stuff in the Bible about forgiveness and mercy make sense. We don’t get everything. We don’t see everything. We see just a tiny sliver of how things are for other people, and we judge them based on that.”
“Like my grandma the other day. Just sitting down and talking with her… wow! She’s quite a woman, someone I could really be inspired by, and yet my whole life I judged her as beneath me and my family. I was embarrassed by her, and now I’m embarrassed that I was embarrassed.” Dani sighed. “It makes me wonder how many other things I’ve gotten wrong about other people. Like all those people who live on Grandma’s street. It was easy to look down on them and think I was so much better than them because my family ‘got out’ and they didn’t. But, I don’t know, maybe there were things that kept them here. Maybe they’ve never been shown a different way or given a hand up. I don’t know. I just know that Grandma says there are good people who live there, good, decent people, and for the first time I honestly believe that could be true.”
“The possibilities change when your perspective changes.”
“Lotta things change when your perspective does.”
Eric and Greg’s first strategy was to look up the cash notes individually; however, they gave up on that ten minutes in to their hour. There were just too many and too much variety. Finally, they just started a list detailing the types, dates, serial numbe
rs, and other identifying information. That way when Eric got the chance, he could email a couple of the top old-cash sites with the information and maybe get an idea of the worth or worthlessness of the money.
However, near the end of their hour, they gave up even pursuing that strategy. At this rate it was going to take a full day to catalog all of it.
“Well, when we get back into the 1880 and 1890 bills,” Greg said, fingering one gently, “I think those almost have to be worth something more than face value.”
“Wow. Who knew there was this much to know about old cash?” Eric skimmed one page on a site they had found. “I think basically, we’re going to have to research each one for their ID info. Like this five dollar one we have from 1890.” He pointed to the laptop screen. “This says it can be worth a few bucks all the way up to a couple thousand, and that’s one bill.” Scrolling just a bit, he skimmed the next part. “Brown seals are worth more than blue seals.” He clicked a couple times more to look up the one dollar notes.
Reading one page, he leaned closer. “Hey, didn’t we see one that looked kind of like this?” He spun the computer for Greg to see.
“Yeah. I think there might have been a couple of them actually. I think they were in…” He sorted through the little rubber-banded objects. “This set I think?” Undoing the tie, he went through them as Eric watched, his heart revving up with each one Greg went past.
“Careful with those,” he said, now beginning to get nervous as the understanding seeped in.
“Yeah,” Greg said, stopping. “Here’s one.” He laid it on the table and kept thumbing. “Here’s another one.” He looked at the one on the table. “Yeah, it’s the same.” Four more down, he laid another one out as well. “And here’s one.”
Eric picked one up carefully, examined it and the sited. A full minute and he laid back on the table and sat back, looking at the three bills and back to the computer. A second and he dragged himself forward. He read and reread the page. “Okay. If this is right,” he said, fingering the wording on the site, and he nodded at the bills on the table, “that’s about $3,000 laying right there.”
Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5) Page 48