“Just be careful of the walls,” I said. I walked over to one and gave it a quick tap with my foot, and decades of old dirt and dust fell to the ground.
As they got to work in the basement, I walked outside to wait for the foundation support crew to arrive. They were supposed to, essentially, impale the house with giant metal posts before they lifted it up that afternoon.
I stood on the driveway and craned my neck down the street but didn’t see signs of the crew. The house was on a picturesque, tree-lined street, with the oaks looking like they predated everything. Most of the other houses were either tear-downs or Frankenstein amalgamations of old houses that had been partially ripped apart and added on to. When I squinted, I could see what the block might have looked like a hundred years ago, when tourists were just beginning to discover Lake Geneva as a destination.
Movement next door caught my eye, and I turned my head to see a lace curtain being pulled back from the window. A small, gray face peered out at me. I gave a quick nod, but the woman didn’t look away. She continued to stare at me, sizing me up. I waved this time, smiling to acknowledge her gaze. That finally did it; she shut the curtain and disappeared.
I figured she was doing something else, but then she appeared on the porch of her house, beckoning me with a long, thin hand. As I walked closer, I could see that she was almost as old as her house. She wore a bright pink pantsuit and a face full of makeup. Her hair was white and teased out like a mushroom on top of her head.
“You bought the Moore place?” she said.
I nodded. “It isn’t in the best of shape, as you can see. Were the Moores the last family to live there?”
She shook her head. “No. That was years ago.” She slowly sat down on one of her bright yellow wicker porch chairs, her eyes wide. “I thought they were going to tear the house down.”
“They were going to. And another buyer probably would have. But I’ve always wanted to restore a house like this. Save it,” I said.
“Why? Everyone said that it would be worth more to the neighborhood if it was just torn down,” she said.
“Because I think it deserves another chance, another family,” I said with a smile.
Her hand shook as she brought it up to her face, wiping at her clear-framed glasses. “It did use to be a beautiful house.”
I shifted, shoving my hands into my cargo pants, and studied her. “In what way?”
“It was once a bright white, before . . .” She moved a shaking hand toward the peeling blue stucco and shook her head. Her face darkened, and she looked away, down at her own baby blue–painted front porch.
“Before someone ruined it,” I said with a frown.
She nodded, and her eyes grew bright again. “You should have seen it during Christmastime. Mrs. Moore would hang evergreen garlands along the porch and put candles in all of the front windows. Mr. Moore would light luminaries along the front walkway on Christmas Eve, and it made the whole house look like it was glowing.” She paused and smiled, looking at her lap. “They always had the biggest tree, too, right in the front window where everyone could see.”
I glanced back at the house and, despite its deterioration, I could see what she saw. I could see the strings of bulbs on the tree in the big picture window, and the luminaries glowing along the walkway, bookended by sugary white snow.
“It sounds beautiful,” I said.
“It was. At the neighborhood party, Mrs. Moore always wore a beautiful red Christmas dress with a full skirt, and Mr. Moore wore a spotless black suit. And she made David wear a tie. I can still see it, clear as day.” She paused and wiped her eyes before she laughed. “Some days, things feel like they happened yesterday, and what did happen yesterday seems like it happened years ago.” She shook her head, her thin white hair floating in the air. “I know that doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does, actually.” There were days when Abby’s first birthday seemed closer than her fifth, that the passage of time wasn’t a linear one, but one that swerved back and forth, coming closer at some points, touching the present in ways that didn’t seem possible. It couldn’t possibly have been four years since I was married, since Matt was my husband. Yet it felt like a lifetime ago that he was my partner.
“Are you going to live there when it’s all fixed up?” she said.
I shook my head. “No. I’m just going to restore it and sell it. Hopefully a nice family will buy it and appreciate all the history inside.”
“Oh. That’s too bad. You seem to really love the house.” After a pause, she said, “I’m Elsie Burke, by the way.”
“Alex Proctor. How long have you lived here?” I said.
“Forever. Too long. Long enough that they should have taken me away in a body bag years ago,” she said. After a sigh, she added, “Seventy years. I grew up in this house and never left.”
I smiled. “Most people move from house to house like locusts, looking for bigger and better. I really admire that you’ve stayed here for so long. I can’t imagine how the town has changed since you first moved in.”
She smiled. “Some good, some bad.” She leaned forward. “I was around for the bunnies, you know.” Her tone lowered to a whisper. “In fact, I was one.” She put a finger to her lips, her eyes sparkling.
I laughed. “Playboy? You were a bunny at the old Playboy Resort?” In the mid-sixties, Hugh Hefner had opened a Playboy Resort at what was now the Grand Geneva Resort, complete with bunny waitresses and smoking jackets.
She nodded and waved a wrinkled hand in the air. “Oh, yes. I was thirty-eight, but of course I lied and told them that I was much younger. It sure was fun. The stories I could tell . . .”
I laughed. “Well, I’d love to hear them sometime.”
She put a hand to her mouth. “Remind me to tell you the story about Frank Sinatra and the Labor Day party of 1969.”
“Oh, I will. That sounds wonderfully scandalous,” I said. My head turned as I heard a truck pull into the driveway with the letters BOB’S EXCAVATING stenciled on the side. “Definitely save that story for me. I need to run back next door. I have a basement to reinforce and about a hundred and fifteen years of old concrete and junk to haul away,” I said. “If you get bored, come on over and give us a hand.”
She looked like she wanted to say more, but she relaxed and gave me a wave good-bye.
I was halfway down the steps when I stopped and turned, pulling a piece of paper and a small golf pencil out of my back pocket. I scrawled my phone number on it and held it out to Elsie.
“Just in case there are any emergencies with the house. Don’t hesitate to contact me after hours if you see anything worth noting,” I said.
She took it from me and slowly nodded. “I’ll make sure it stays safe. I’m looking forward to seeing it pretty again.”
I smiled. “Me too.”
CHAPTER 7
The crane pulled back like a snake ready to strike as the crew stood by, ready to roll the sixty-foot steel beams under the house. When they finished, the house would hover five feet in the air. I stood on the sidewalk and waited, my heart pounding. If, for some reason, everyone had miscalculated the weight of the house or the condition of the joists, it could all crumble into dust. And it would happen in front of the small crowd that had gathered on the sidewalk. Elsie, as promised, remained on her front porch, watching.
“Last chance! Anything else you want to get out of the house before we filet it like a fish?” Bob, the crane operator, called down to me from the manning station, where he held the controls.
I shook my head and watched as the posts ran through the house with a sickening crunch and the screech of metal. I covered my mouth while the posts were secured and the house began to rise into the air. The hydraulics puffed and sputtered, until finally, the house was lifted five feet off the foundation, high enough for the excavating crew to maneuver a backhoe into the basement to pull out all the old stone and concrete.
With a thump, the lift turned off. The crowd
didn’t move or speak, stunned at the sight of the house in the air.
“Show’s over, folks,” I said with a clap, when it became apparent it wasn’t going to crumble to the ground. I bent forward and put my hands on my knees in relief.
* * *
I picked up Abby at her after-school program later that day. She greeted me with a weary smile. Her two pigtails were askew on the back of her head and her face was flushed.
“We played Capture the Flag,” she said as she buckled herself into her booster seat. “It was so much fun.”
“Oh good! Was your friend Lucy there today?” I said.
She shook her head. “Her mom picked her up from school today.” She paused and then opened her eyes wide. “Could you pick me up next time?”
I swallowed hard and gave her a small smile. “Maybe. If I can swing it and get Eddie to cover for me at the house, I would love to. But After School is fun, too, right?” My tone was light, encouraging.
She nodded. “Yeah, but sometimes it’s nice to just go home. Like when I go to Daddy’s house.”
My hands gripped the steering wheel. “Of course. Let me see if I can come pick you up next time.”
She chattered on, peppering the conversation with staccato, bubbly words. I listened, but my mind was far away, back to when I’d planned to work part-time and be there every day for pickup.
In that alternate life, I volunteered in Abby’s classroom and went on her field trips. I knew all the kids in her class and grabbed coffee with the other mothers during my free time. I had seen them before—all the normal, typical moms—standing around at drop-off. They all dressed the same: stretchy black capri pants, tank tops, and zip-up hoodies with running shoes and aviator sunglasses. In one hand was a coffee mug and in the other rested the handle of a jogging stroller that held a cooing baby. I didn’t know many of them; they were women who had moved to the town, rather than grown up here. I guessed that some of them decided to relocate up north after spending summers at the lake, with the idea that living in Lake Geneva would be like a year-round vacation.
I could always pick out the first-time residents around January each year. They would go through the summer with delight, in disbelief that they lived somewhere so beautiful and relaxing. Fall would come, and they would enjoy the leisurely days in town without the thousands of extra bodies, checking out at the grocery store in under thirty minutes. The holidays would sneak up, and the town would come alive with Christmas lights, cider, and a glorious patch of ice on the lake. But once all of that was over, all we were left with in January was a frozen lake, unplowed roads, and football.
They always stared out at the lake, squinting at the groups of ice fishermen driving big pickup trucks that towed wooden huts. The cars stopped near the center of the lake, and the fishermen, dressed in head-to-toe snowsuits, cut holes in the ice, dropped a fishing line into the freezing water, and cracked open a beer. The new residents would shake their heads and assume the lake would swallow all the cars and huts, even though it never did. Well, almost never.
They would wonder why, when they only moved an hour north, it was so much colder, so much snowier. And why didn’t any of us seem bothered by it enough to plow the streets several times a day? After a couple of years, they would start to adjust and shrug when anything less than a foot of snow fell, and possibly even root for the Packers over the Bears.
Yet, even though they were year-round residents, I could feel their eyes on me when I dropped Abby off at school, maybe wondering whether I was the mom or the babysitter. Wondering why I wasn’t there each morning, why I wasn’t volunteering to be a room mother.
In my former life, I didn’t even want to be a room mother and probably would have faked every possible illness to get out of the job, but now that the choice had been taken away from me, the grass was verdant green.
At home, Abby and I ate a gourmet dinner of grilled cheese and tomato soup, then I tucked her into bed. I collapsed on the couch and took a sip of the warm beer on my thrift store end table. I winced at the skunked liquid and my eyes shifted to the crumbling cardboard box in the foyer. I had dropped it on the tile, my arms cramped from pulling boulders of concrete out of the basement. Upon impact, it had released more dust on the tile floor in protest.
I closed my eyes and again pictured the house as Elsie had described it, during the holidays. The neighbors filled the house like packing peanuts, drinking hotty toddies and gossiping about each other. Maybe the men, after too many drinks, sang a rousing chorus of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” while the women laughed and rolled their eyes. The children ran underfoot, the girls with big white bows in their hair and the boys with uncomfortable suit jackets. Maybe the husband and wife stole a tipsy kiss in front of their friends by the tree. I could smell the cider, feel the warmth of the wood-burning fire, and hear the roar of the increasingly boisterous crowd. Things were perfect, at least for a night.
When I opened my eyes, the silence and emptiness of my own house settled onto my shoulders. When we were married, Matt and I would always watch the news together, even if one of us was nodding off. After four years, I still missed that nightly ritual.
I paced back and forth in my bedroom, straightening up the laundry pile and scrubbing old primer stains off my shirt. Finally, I went into Abby’s room and curled up next to her in the twin bed, my arm tucked around her waist.
CHAPTER 8
The backhoe expertly maneuvered around the driveway and toward the house, until it disappeared into the hole that the crew had made in the foundation. It returned, its shovel full of concrete and material from the basement, dumping it unceremoniously in a pile on the driveway. Then, back around it went for another trip.
“So, that’s it? Somehow I thought it would be more dramatic. What do you think?” I said to Abby. She stood at my side, eyes following the backhoe. It was Saturday, and she’d begged me to come to the house to watch the excavators work. After we had raised it in the air, the house had transitioned from “spider lair” to “magical floating castle” in her mind.
“Looks pretty cool to me,” she said.
Eddie stood to my left and nodded, his arms crossed over his stained white T-shirt. “Yeah. And your house is still five feet in the air.” He pointed to the hydraulics, which remained in place, and would do so until new concrete had been poured and allowed to set. The entire process was supposed to take a week, and we were on day two.
“True.” I watched as another load of foundation was deposited outside. A couple walking their dog across the street slowed to almost a stop as they stared at the lifted house and construction materials scattering the yard. I waved and they hurried along, eyes cast down. “I don’t get it,” I said as I watched them leave. “Do I look that scary?”
Eddie opened his mouth before quickly shutting it again, a smile teasing at the corners of his lips as he looked down at Abby. “I’m not sure how to answer that.”
“Funny. No, really. You’d think that people would be happy that I’m restoring this house, bringing back a bit of history.” I shook my head.
He shrugged. “Maybe they think it would raise property values more if you just ripped it down and built something new. Vacationers pay top dollar to stay around here.”
“It probably would,” I said. “Sure as hell would be a lot easier to sell.” I stopped as the beeping from the backhoe grew louder as it reversed through the basement. “Wouldn’t that be nice? I wouldn’t have to worry about who was going to buy it, if they were going to rip everything out that I killed myself to save.”
“You wouldn’t scare off the buyers by insisting you meet them first before you go under contract. . . .” he added under his breath.
I turned to face him. “And what’s wrong with that? I’m going to put so much into this house. Shouldn’t I do due diligence to make sure the buyer won’t just rip it down?”
“There’s some saying about beggars and choosers that would be appropriate to mention right now,” he said
.
“Who asked you?” I muttered.
“You did, actually. When you asked me what would be the reason—”
I cut him off with a swipe of my hand. “Enough. Back to work.”
“You’re the boss.” He turned and headed toward the foundation, disappearing into the hole after the backhoe.
I shook off his words. If I let anyone come into the house, they might not appreciate it and give it the treatment it deserved. Abuse it, even, and then it would be right back to where it was—neglected, run-down, an empty shell of what it used to be.
I exhaled and pulled sheathed pruning shears out of my pocket. I pointed them toward the overgrown rosebushes that lined the property. “Want to pick out some flowers now?” I said to Abby. The last time she saw the house, she commented on the pink roses, and I wanted to collect a bouquet for her bedroom.
She nodded and we had started toward the flowers when she suddenly stopped. I followed her gaze to the house next door, where Elsie sat on her porch watching us with a faint smile. “Who’s that lady?”
Before I could answer, Elsie waved us over. There was a pitcher of cold lemonade sweating on a white wicker table and two plates of tea cookies. She wore a bright purple pantsuit and heels.
“Expecting company?” I said, my hand on Abby’s shoulder.
She shook her head, and a look of embarrassment flashed across her face. I realized that she had been hoping the company would be me.
“Mom, can I have one of those?” Abby pointed to the pink frosted tea cookies sprinkled with rainbow nonpareils.
“If Mrs. Burke says it’s okay,” I said, and she nodded.
She pointed to the yellow wicker chair next to her, and Abby sat down, perched on the edge with her spindly legs crossed at the ankles, and nibbled the cookie.
“How old are you?” Elsie asked her.
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