What she’d loved most was the history of that first house: the smell of the old wood, the creak of cupboard doors and floorboards, the warbly imperfections in the old single-pane windows.
But she looked down now at what Nate had labeled DREAM HOUSE in neat block handwriting, at the carefully rendered plans done to scale: elevation drawings; close-ups of each wall, the roof, and the stairs; detailed illustrations showing how they would frame the floors and ceilings. There were materials lists calculating how many board feet of lumber they needed, how much insulation, how many bundles of shingles. Everything looked so tidy, so perfect on paper: his plan for her happiness laid out in neat columns.
And back in Connecticut, Nate managed to convince Helen that they could do this. He’d read books, watched videos, attended courses. “And you grew up building,” he’d reminded her. “It’s in your genes.”
But none of that had prepared Helen for how unnerved she’d feel at the familiar screech of the powerful saw. Or the way Nate had looked at her when she’d mismeasured. Like she was a goddamned idiot.
“It’ll get easier,” Nate said now, putting his hand over hers and giving it a squeeze. “I’m not saying it’ll be without its challenges, but we’ve just got to follow the plans. Stick together. We can do this.”
Follow the plans, she thought.
She smiled, took another gulp of wine.
She thought of all the times she and her father had dealt with jobs that didn’t go as planned: weather delays, bad batches of lumber, late deliveries, angles that didn’t work no matter how perfect they’d looked on paper. She worried that Nate seemed to live in a world where unpredictable things didn’t happen.
Her eyes moved to the little bundle with the tooth and nail, resting on the kitchen counter beside the sink now, next to the dirty dishes.
Nate rolled up the plans for their dream house.
“Tomorrow will be a better day,” she said.
Say it and make it true.
CHAPTER 6
Olive
MAY 19, 2015
Daddy’s truck was in the driveway. He was home an hour early.
Had the school gotten in touch with him? Told him Olive hadn’t shown up yet again? Had he come home to look for her?
Olive felt panic seeping in, a little dribble at first, then a steady stream as she got closer to the house.
She’d spent the day searching around with her metal detector on the northwest side of the bog. The metal detector was on the fritz—sometimes beeping when there was nothing at all beneath it, sometimes just dying altogether. It was crap, but she’d picked it up for thirty bucks at a church rummage sale last fall, so what did she expect? She was saving her money for a much better one, a hundred times more sensitive and powerful. It even came with headphones. Olive was sure that if she had this, she’d find the treasure in no time. She’d been saving her allowance, doing any odd jobs she could find. She’d even skipped eating school lunch and pocketed the four bucks Daddy gave her each day. And Mike had offered to buy the old crappy one from her for the same price she’d paid for it, which seemed unfair, but he insisted, saying he knew it would be good luck for him because it had been hers and look at all the cool stuff she’d found with it.
During today’s search, from time to time, she’d take a break and go up the hill on a little path to check on Helen and Nate (she knew their names now from hearing them talking, from watching them, but more than knowing their names, she felt she knew them). She’d been watching them from behind the moss-covered root system of a tree that had fallen over—it made the perfect cover. They were trying to frame one of the walls, but things hadn’t ended well—they’d started fighting as soon as things got hard. Olive almost felt sorry for them. Then they’d quit early (after getting into a fight when Helen cut a board too short) and gone down to the bog, which meant Olive’s searching was over for the day. It was time to call it quits anyway, because she wanted to get home before Daddy, get dinner started, and make it look like she’d gone to school and was doing her homework like the good girl he thought she was.
But seeing Daddy’s truck in the driveway wrecked all that.
She ditched the metal detector in the toolshed and scrambled to come up with a story to explain why she hadn’t been in school. Saying she’d missed the bus seemed pretty lame. She could tell him she was too upset and freaked-out about the accident, about the dead kids just a little older than her, to get on the bus, go to school. That would work. It would have to. It was the best she had for now.
“Hello?” she called from the kitchen around the growing lump in her throat. She went into the living room to see if he’d started work in there like they’d planned. But she heard telltale banging from upstairs. Was he working in the hallway, which was still bare stud walls, exposed wiring?
“Daddy?” she called.
“Up here,” he yelled back.
She jumped the stairs two at time, and then her chest got tight when she saw he wasn’t in the hallway and that the door to her bedroom was open. This room was her haven—beautiful and pristine, with a neatly made bed and all of her treasures lined up on shelves: stuff she’d found with her metal detector (old buttons, nails, musket balls), the pelt from a fox she’d shot and skinned herself, and her favorite photo of Mama, taken a few weeks before she left. Mama was outside at the picnic table holding a plastic tumbler, grinning into the camera. She had on her lucky necklace, the one she never took off those last weeks before she left—a pattern of a circle, triangle, and square nested inside each other with another circle with an eye at the center. Mama called it her I see all necklace. Olive had taken the picture. It was a warm early-summer night and Daddy was cooking chicken on the grill. The radio was tuned to a classic rock station, and Mom and Dad were drinking rum and Cokes from big plastic tumblers. Olive had been happy because Mama had been home and in a good mood, and she and Daddy had been getting along so well, kissing and calling each other “honey” and “baby” and all those other terms of endearment that used to make Olive roll her eyes and make pretend gagging noises, when secretly she thought it so sweet that they were still so in love. That night, when she saw Mama take Daddy’s hand after he came back from the grill with a plateful of seared chicken legs, Olive really believed they were still in love and that everything was going to be okay.
Olive walked slowly down the hall, like the way you walk in a creepy haunted house at Halloween when you don’t really want to see what’s going to happen next.
But it was no use. She could shut her eyes and pretend it wasn’t happening, but she knew she had to look eventually. And she knew just what she’d see.
Olive walked into the bedroom to see that the shelves had been taken off the wall, the photo and all of her other things haphazardly shoved into cardboard beer boxes. Her bed had been pushed into the middle of the room and the boxes were piled on top of it. It reminded Olive of a life raft in the center of a turbulent ocean.
Daddy was standing in the back corner of her room, holding a sledgehammer, and he smiled at her. Half of the back wall was already down. He still had on his blue work pants and boots but had taken off his work shirt and was in a white T-shirt that was damp with sweat, stained yellow around the collar and under the arms, so worn it was practically see-through. She could see his wiry chest hair curled underneath it.
She hated him just then. Hated that he was a man who could do something like this. Who could betray her in such a huge, devastating way.
“Hey, Ollie Girl,” he said, smiling at her in an isn’t this a nice surprise sort of way.
All the spit in her mouth dried up. She felt like Daddy had hit her with the sledge, torn her right open and exposed her insides.
“Grab a pry bar and give me a hand,” he said.
She worked to steady her breathing. To not freak out and start screaming or, worse, lose it completely and start bawlin
g like a little kid. The room seemed to tilt and glow, everything growing brighter. She thought of that stupid old expression about being so mad you saw red and understood it now. Understood that fury brought its own fire with it, tinting the world around you.
“But you said we would finish the living room first.” She choked the words out, eyes getting blurry with tears she was trying so hard to keep back. “I told you I didn’t want my room changed! I’m happy with it the way it is.”
He blinked at her from behind his scratched plastic safety goggles, his blue eyes bloodshot, with dark bags under them. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept in a week, a haunted man.
“I thought it would be a nice surprise. I thought you wanted a nicer room.”
“But I didn’t—”
“Is it so wrong?” Daddy asked. “For me to want my best girl to have the best room?”
She didn’t answer. Didn’t speak. She was afraid if she opened her mouth, she would either yell or start to full-on cry. Why hadn’t he listened to her? Why did he never, ever listen to her?
Was this why Mama had left?
Had he not listened to Mama, either? Just ignored everything she said, everything she asked for?
She rubbed at her eyes, clenched her jaw. Stared at the sledgehammer in her father’s hand, willing him to drop it. Concentrating with all her might. She wanted him to drop it and for it to fall on his toes, crush them, break them maybe. She wanted him to feel pain, to be shocked by it.
Then, as she watched, the heavy hammer slipped out of Daddy’s grasp, dropping to the floor with a thud, just missing the toe of his right work boot. He paid no attention.
Olive blinked down at it, not quite believing.
She held her breath.
Had she done this? Did she have that kind of power? Something awakened, brought to the surface by rage?
No way, Odd Oliver, she told herself.
It was coincidence, that’s all. People couldn’t control the world around them like that.
Least of all her.
“I was thinking we could put built-in shelves along this wall,” Daddy said, gesturing. “Floor to ceiling. With maybe a built-in desk right in the center. A place for you to do your homework. To set up a computer.”
“But I don’t even have a computer.” Her anger now came out as a whine. She hated whining.
“We’ll get you one. To go with your brand-new room.”
He smiled big and wide, and she thought, So this is how it’s going to be. A bribe. A trap, really. But it didn’t matter. It was no use fighting. What’s done was done. Daddy had made up his mind. He had already taken a sledgehammer to things, torn down the wall behind where her bed used to be. The air was full of dust, the carpet covered in the rubble that was once her wall. She hated the way the walls looked without drywall—the studs, plumbing, wiring, and junction boxes exposed. It was like catching a grown-up getting undressed. It embarrassed her. Made her wish she hadn’t seen.
Houses held secrets.
Her father seemed determined to expose all of their house’s secrets, to strip it down and tear it wide open for all the world to see. Even in her very own room.
“You could use a computer for your schoolwork,” Daddy said, giving her a sly smile. “Think how much easier your homework would be. You’re still getting homework, aren’t you?”
She nodded, looked down at the dusty carpet while he held her in his gaze.
She was sure, absolutely positive, then that he knew. He knew she hadn’t been to school that day, that she’d been skipping regularly. He knew, but he wasn’t going to say anything, wasn’t going to confront her or punish her.
The world felt off-kilter, torn open.
He held out the pry bar for her, and she understood that her helping him with this, tearing down the walls of her bedroom, endlessly renovating the house, would make skipping school okay.
It was an unspoken deal.
And she knew she had no choice. Not really.
It would be different if Mama were here. But then again, if Mama hadn’t gone away, none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have made a habit of skipping school; high school wouldn’t have turned into the disaster that it was. The house would still be intact. Mama would never have put up with the torn-down walls, the plaster dust that covered every surface like fine snow.
Her insides twisted as she reached for the pry bar, her fingers gripping, squeezing tight, like she was trying to choke it, but the metal was cold, unyielding.
She was sure that she couldn’t have made that sledgehammer drop. She was just a girl. A powerless, school-skipping, odd girl whose mother had run off and whose father was making hope where he could find it.
She was a terrible, cruel girl for wishing him harm. It was like spanking a little baby for crying because it was hungry.
He smiled at her now, his whole face lighting up. “Won’t your mama be surprised,” he said, “when she comes back home and finds things fixed up so nice. A brand-new house. That’s what it will seem like. Won’t she be happy then?”
FRAMING
CHAPTER 7
Helen
JUNE 8, 2015
They were just finishing framing the downstairs when the sky opened up.
The house had truly begun to take shape. The subfloor was in and the four outer walls were up and braced; the interior walls framing the pantry and mechanical room were done. They were attaching the final bathroom wall when thunder shook the house; lightning struck so close Helen could feel the electricity in the air, smell the ozone. She’d never seen such a powerful storm. Was it because they were higher up in the mountains here, closer to the sky?
She stood in the center of their newly framed downstairs, surrounded by the two-by-four framed walls—the skeleton of the house—watching the storm, feeling the storm.
Nate was stressed because they were behind schedule. The plan was to be finished framing the entire house, including the roof, in six weeks, and it didn’t look like they’d make it. Helen wasn’t worried. She’d worked with her father enough to know that it was normal to be a little off schedule and over budget. They’d get it done. And they were moving a little faster each day as their skills and confidence improved.
“It’s not safe out here!” Nate yelled over the downpour and rumbles of thunder. Off in the distance, they heard sirens. They got their tools under cover and sprinted down to the trailer, laughing at how soaked they got. They changed into dry clothes and Helen made a fresh pot of coffee. The thunder and lightning let up, but the rain continued. They sipped coffee and watched the rain fall, feeling cozy and content as they listened to the lovely sound it made on the old tin roof of the trailer.
“What should we do with ourselves?” Helen asked, looking at the stack of papers on Nate’s makeshift card-table desk in the living room—the house plans, the building timeline, the endless to-do lists and schedules. Surely there was some rainy-day project for them to tackle.
“I say we take the rest of the day off,” Nate announced, and Helen was thrilled.
“Uh-oh,” Nate said, noticing a place where the roof leaked—water dripping through the thin, stained boards that made up the ceiling. He grabbed a bowl and put it beneath. Just then, Helen noticed another drip splatter onto the peeling linoleum floor. She got a saucepan. Soon, the two of them were doing a strange dance, hurrying to put vessels beneath quickly multiplying leaks.
“Better hurry up and get the second floor and roof done,” Nate said. “I don’t know how much longer this place is going to last.”
Helen smiled in agreement. She couldn’t wait to be out of their tiny sardine can of a trailer.
Nate settled in on the couch with a book on bird behavior. He turned on the lamp on the side table and the kitchen light flickered. Helen opened her laptop and checked her email to find a note from her friend Jenn
y, saying only: How are things going in the Great North Woods? You ready to come back home yet? I’ve got martinis waiting…
Helen looked around at the containers catching drips in the leaking trailer and tried to formulate a witty reply, but her attempts just sounded pathetic. She’d write Jenny back later.
The rain pounded the tin roof, adding to the percussive music of the steady drips into the pans, bowls, and cups scattered around the trailer.
Helen decided to don her rain gear and go into town. It had been three weeks since they’d arrived in Hartsboro, and she had been busy with building and starting the garden, and honestly, it felt a little selfish to take time off for research when there was so much work to do each day. And by the time work ended each day, she was too sore and exhausted to do much more than settle in with a glass of wine and early bed.
“I’m going to take advantage of the rainy weather to go check out the town hall and library and see what I can dig up on our property and local history,” she announced. “Want to come?”
Nate shook his head, eyes focused on his bird book. “I think I’ll stay in and catch up on some reading,” he said, clearly pleased to have the afternoon to himself to read. “Have fun,” he added when she paused to kiss the top of his head on the way out.
Helen stopped into Ferguson’s General Store to pick up a loaf of bread. It sold everything from hunting rifles to fresh pies with labels that had clearly been made on someone’s inkjet printer (Nate called them “grandma pies”—bumbleberry was his favorite). There was a teenage boy with a crew cut and a blaze-orange camo T-shirt working the register. A police scanner was squawking from a shelf behind him: chimes, followed by voices uttering codes.
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