The Promise of Home

by Darcie Chan

  When she arrived at the marble mansion the next morning, Matt was sitting outside the back door with a disposable cup from the bakery in each hand.

  “You’re here early,” she said as she got out of the car and opened the door for Gus to do the same. She also took a bag from the backseat containing the sweatpants—now freshly laundered—that Matt had loaned her after the paint mishap.

  “So are you. I brought you a green tea from the bakery.” He held one of the cups out to her, and the steam emanating from the small drinking hole in the lid curled up into the chilly morning air. “Mornings are getting pretty cold.”

  “Yeah. It won’t be long before we’re buried in snow. Thanks for this,” she said as she took the cup. Gus went up to Matt and whined for attention as she pulled the key to the door from her purse. “Here, let’s go inside.”

  In the kitchen, they took off their coats and gloves. “So, what’s on tap for today?” Matt asked. He took a sip from his own cup.

  “Well, I need to install a support for a flat-screen TV on a wall in each bedroom. While I do that, I thought maybe you could put in the new locks I got for the doors.”

  “Sure. Locks are my specialty,” Matt said with a smile. “You have a drill here, right?”

  “Yes, in the toolbox. I’ll need to use it, too. Here, I’ll put your stuff with mine.” She took Matt’s jacket and gloves and laid them beside her own on the kitchen counter. “I’ve got deliveries of furniture starting right after Thanksgiving, so there’s not too much time left to finish up—” She turned around in midsentence and nearly ran into Matt, who had stepped closer to the counter while she had her back turned. “Whoa, I’m sorry. I almost beaned you.”

  She had never been that close to him, and what air remained between them felt electrically charged. She was close enough to see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes and the day-old stubble around his mouth, to smell toothpaste and freshly scrubbed skin combined with the scent of the coffee he held. It was almost as if time stopped for a few seconds as her mind went completely blank.

  Get ahold of yourself, she thought. You have work to do.

  Emily got Gus settled on his dog bed, grabbed her toolbox, and headed for the stairs. Wordlessly, Matt took the heavy toolbox from her before they went up. She opened her mouth to protest.

  “Don’t you even,” he said before she could get a word out. “I know you’re usually very capable of lugging this around, but you almost bashed into me down there. I’m not sure you’re fully awake yet, so I’ll get it for you this one time. No telling what damage you might do with a large metal object.” He shot a cocky grin over his shoulder as he bolted up the stairs with her tools.

  “Hey!” She ran after him, taking the stairs two at a time, but she couldn’t catch him before he’d reached the master suite and set down the box.

  They worked methodically most of the morning, she using a stud finder and tape measure to insert supports for the televisions and he swapping out the old doorknobs for new ones with deadbolt locks and adding chain door guards. They shared the drill back and forth as they needed it.

  “Can I use the drill for a minute?” Emily asked. She had just marked a small X in pencil on the wall where she needed to place one of the wall supports. They were in the last of the six bedrooms that would be used by future guests.

  “Yep.” He passed the drill to her and returned his focus to measuring for the doorknob’s new strike plate.

  Emily took a few seconds to let her gaze run over the way Matt’s shirt fit on his muscular torso before she wrested her attention back to the wall. Confidently, she swapped out the Phillips bit for a long bit, raised the drill, positioned the bit against the small X on the wall, and squeezed the trigger switch.

  At first it felt like every other time she’d drilled a hole into a stud. The bit went easily through the drywall before encountering a harder surface. But instead of the steady, increased resistance that was typical once the bit hit wood, there was only a moment when it came up against a hard surface before it plunged forward. Even worse, a thin jet of water shot straight out of the hole into her face.

  “Dammit!” she yelled. She yanked the drill away from the wall and set it down roughly. The muffled sound of rushing water could be heard coming from within the wall, and in a few seconds, it began gushing out beneath the baseboard.

  Matt flinched and looked over his shoulder. “What happened?”

  “I hit a water line.”

  “Oh, shit.” Matt glanced down at the floor. “That’s a lot of water.”

  “The pipe in the wall must’ve burst. Probably corroded from the inside.” Emily was already bolting out the door, heading for the stairs. “I’m going to shut off the water. As soon as you hear me yell, go in the bathroom around the corner and turn on the sink—the cold water side, wide open. It’ll help run the water out of the pipe faster.” She left before he could reply and raced downstairs, through the kitchen, and back into a small utility room. The washer and dryer were there, along with a closet where Ruth intended to keep brooms and cleaning supplies, the circuit breaker panel, and the main water shutoff valve.

  “Matt, turn on the sink!” she hollered after she’d rotated the valve all the way closed. She had very little in the mansion that could absorb water, but she grabbed an old bucket from the utility room. On her way back through the kitchen, she turned on the cold water at the sink and took Matt’s clean sweatpants from the counter. There was a roll of paper towels next to the clothes, and she snatched that up as well.

  The water was already pooling on the floor when she reentered the bedroom. Immediately, she threw the sweatpants on the wet floor and started unrolling the paper towels.

  “Sink faucet’s on,” Matt said as he bent to help her. “I shudder to think how much water is inside that wall.”

  “The wall is toast,” Emily said. “I’ve got the kitchen faucet running downstairs to drain the pipe. Now, the most important thing is to get this water up before it soaks through to the ceiling below us. It’d be nice if I could keep the wood floor here from warping, but I think it’s too saturated to avoid damage. Have you got any more clothes in your car?”

  “I wish. I got embarrassed, having only dirty clothes in there to lend you, so I cleaned out my car and washed everything I had stashed in it.”

  “Well, we’re going to need more things to sop up this water, and fast. I never should have taken my shop vac home.” There was still standing water on the floor and more leaking out of the hole in the wall and the crack beneath the baseboard.

  “Do you want to run and get it? Or I could go home and get towels,” Matt offered, “but that might take too long—”

  “Dog bed!”

  Emily jumped up again, ran downstairs, and heaved a sleeping Gus off his large cushion and onto the floor. “Sorry, bud, I’ve gotta borrow this,” she said as the dog whined and blinked. In seconds, she was back to the bedroom, where she threw the dog bed on the wet floor.

  Another minute or so passed before the stream of water from the wall stopped. The flow from the sink faucet slowed to a trickle and then a fast drip before it, too, ended. The dog bed functioned like an enormous sponge, soaking up much of the water on the hardwood. She and Matt tried to absorb the rest of it with his sweatpants. They took turns wringing them into the bucket or the bathroom sink until the floor was no longer a shallow lake.

  When they finally stopped their frantic work, Emily sighed, and Matt shook his head. She was glad that Matt didn’t try to say anything just then, because there wasn’t a single thing he could have said to make her feel better. It was a huge setback. She would have to have the entire length of the corroded pipe replaced, dry the interior of the wall, replace and repaint the drywall that had gotten wet, and tear up and replace much of the hardwood floor.

  “We need to get this wet dog bed off the floor,” she said finally. “I’ll throw it in the back of my car and deal with it at home. It was due for a washing, anyway.” Emily tried
to lift the cushion, but it was waterlogged and awkward.

  “Here, let’s both grab it,” Matt said. Emily didn’t offer any resistance when he took hold of one side and hoisted it up. Together, they carried it downstairs to the back door and out to Emily’s car, where they loaded it into the rear cargo area.

  “Do you want to go home and change?” Matt asked.

  Emily looked down at her clothing. Everything from her work boots up to her knees was sopping wet from kneeling on the floor, and her face and the rest of her body had been thoroughly splattered by the water spraying from the punctured pipe. Matt was similarly saturated.

  “Yes, but I want to take a look at the ceiling first.”

  She went inside to the dining room, which was directly beneath the bedroom that had flooded. The ceiling was lower there than in the great room, so she moved the ladder into the room and climbed up until she was high enough to touch it.

  “Any moisture?” Matt asked as he held the ladder steady.

  Emily moved her hand slowly along the ceiling, feeling for any trace of dampness and looking for any droplets of water that might have soaked through the bedroom floor. “Nope, nothing, at least not yet.”

  “With that much water, you’d think it would come through pretty quickly.”

  “Um-hmm. I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet. If it’s dry this evening, I’ll breathe a little easier.”

  “This is a solid old house,” Matt said as she climbed down. “Maybe the floorboards are extra-thick.”

  “Could be,” Emily said. “Or it might be the insulation. Ruth wanted to make the place more energy-efficient, so I had a thick layer blown in between the first and second floors before the drywall crew redid the walls. That might cause some mold issues…I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I can’t believe I hit a water line in the first place.”

  “You were using a stud finder. It obviously couldn’t tell the difference between a stud and a pipe, so how could you have known?”

  “I don’t know. It was probably an old cast-iron pipe. I should have realized the wall where I was drilling separated the bedroom from the bathroom. If I’d been paying attention, I would have picked a different wall to drill.”

  “Maybe you need to take a little break. You’re here all the time, working nonstop. It’s easy to lose focus when you’re tired.”

  “I didn’t lose focus because I was tired.” Emily looked Matt full in the eyes.

  He took a step back and put his hands up. “If I’m distracting you, keeping you from doing your best work—”

  “No, Matt, that isn’t—”

  “I won’t come anymore if you’d rather I not. I mean, I promised—”

  “Matt!”

  He stopped talking and looked at her, his face a mixture of wariness and disappointment.

  “That’s not it. I mean, yes, you’re a distraction, but…a good one. You leaving is the last thing I want.”

  She couldn’t believe she’d said what she did. For her to blatantly admit her feelings, those feelings, was so uncharacteristic of her. Maybe Matt was right in one respect—that the nonstop work had started to soften her self-control. She couldn’t even bring herself to look at Matt. What will he think of me? she thought. And am I really ready—

  She never finished the thought because Matt stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. With his face inches from hers, he hesitated only a moment, long enough for him to slip a hand behind her head, and for her to feel the warmth of his face emanating against her own, before he kissed her.

  Emily didn’t resist. Whether it was out of surprise or simply a feeling of relief at having a subconscious wish granted, she let him draw her closer, let herself enjoy the sensation of her body pressed against his.

  Something in that sensation was vaguely familiar. She realized it was because Matt was holding her exactly the way she liked to be held—gentle enough that she didn’t feel trapped or overpowered, but firmly enough for him to convey his attraction, to show her his strength, and to make her feel secure. It was yet another way that he reminded her of Andy.

  Still, Matt wasn’t Andy. His mouth felt different, tasted different, as it moved against hers. His voice was nothing like Andy’s, and his background and vocation…well, she never could have imagined Andy handling a firearm of any kind. Matt was an entirely different person, on the inside and the outside, and that was okay. More than okay. And all those times during the past several days when she’d thought about what this moment might be like, it hadn’t been Andy in her fantasies. For the first time since she’d been with Andy, the person she was kissing was a person she truly wanted to be kissing.

  “Do you know how long I’ve thought about doing that?” Matt asked in a low voice when they separated.

  Emily touched the side of his face, slowly stroking her fingers down toward his mouth. “I think…maybe I’ve wanted you to—” She didn’t know exactly what she was saying, and she didn’t get a chance to finish her thought or her sentence.

  For a moment, maybe longer, she lost track of time, where she was, what she had intended to do next. There were only feelings of giddiness and excitement and wanting more. She shivered, and Matt seemed to be able to read her mind. He was no longer tentative as he gently moved his mouth from hers and planted a trail of kisses along her jaw.

  Emily struggled to come to her senses. There was so much work she had to get done. “Not that I want this to stop,” she murmured, “but I’ve got that disaster to deal with upstairs.”

  “You mean we’ve got that disaster to deal with. I know,” Matt said in her ear. “But since we’ve had one hell of a morning, and we’ve just now cleared up the matter of my presence here, will you please let me take you out for lunch? You don’t have to call it a date, since we were going to get cleaned up anyway. I’ve got to let Ruby out of her crate for a bit, but we could go somewhere after that, just to relax for a little while, before we start in again.” He kept his arms around her waist as he pulled back.

  “I think a date somewhere outside this house is long overdue,” she said with a wry grin. “Plus, while you deal with Ruby, I’ll need to get some more tools and equipment from my place, and I have to call around and find a plumber who can help me replace the corroded pipe on short notice. I don’t have the time to install a new one on my own. It might have to be run the length of the wall or longer…But it would be good to know the diameter of the old pipe before we leave.”

  Emily was already making a verbal to-do list, and she had every intention of breaking Matt’s embrace to go back up to the flooded bedroom, but for some reason, she couldn’t resist staying right where she was. In fact, she nestled closer and was secretly delighted when he took the hint and kissed her again.

  “I thought you were going back upstairs?” Matt asked after another few minutes had passed.

  “Um-hmm. I am.” Still, she didn’t move.

  “I see. You know what I think?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think you drilled that hole on purpose. You know, to make a huge mess and extend the time I’d be coming around to help you out.”

  She scoffed and playfully shoved his chest. “Don’t flatter yourself, buddy.”

  “What? You’re too good at what you do to make a silly mistake like that, and it seems like you’ve enjoyed spending time with me. Especially just now.”

  Emily tried to keep a straight face, but a little smile broke through her resolve. “Well, everybody makes a silly mistake once in a while. I just picked the wrong spot to drill. And maybe I didn’t think I’d like having you here in the beginning…but I ended up being wrong about that, too.”

  “I’m glad.” As he released her, Matt took one of her hands, raised it to his lips, and kissed it. “Go measure the pipe, and then let’s get out of here for a while. We can come back and deal with the wall later, together.”

  Chapter 26

  Saturday, June 2, 1934

  Again, the Colchester pari
sh cemetery.

  Across the expanse of headstones, he could see in the distance the grave in which he and his uncle had buried the hobo. Michael shuddered, even though the sunlight was intense and he could feel sweat beginning to moisten his shirt.

  It was warm, not like the dank, earthy experience of the hobo’s midnight burial. The perfect springtime leaves rustled in a gentle breeze as he and his family stood clustered around his grandmother’s freshly dug grave.

  It was like an odd dream, seeing his grandparents’ headstone up close after such a long time, with the blank space for the year of death that would soon be engraved with 1934. It was even more surreal having his father there, standing with his mother’s hand tucked in the crook of his elbow. Niall had taken the first train he could get to Vermont on Thursday night after receiving word, and he would return tomorrow—Sunday—and resume work the following day.

  Throughout the earlier funeral Mass, and now, as his uncle conducted the burial prayer service, Michael couldn’t rid his mind of the first glimpse he’d had of his father. He’d been gone just over three months, but his hair was thinner, grayer, and his lean build now bordered on gaunt. His mother had run out the front door at the sound of a vehicle pulling up to the house.

  “Niall,” she said before his long arms swallowed her to his chest. Michael watched from the doorway as they held each other, as his father pressed his hand to his mother’s soft hair. They were oblivious to him, to the frigid night air, to the straining engine of Whibley’s truck pulling out of the driveway.

  It was only once they had come inside, after his father had greeted Michael and hugged him tightly, and after his mother had removed the heavy coat she’d quickly thrown on, that his father learned of his mother’s condition.