“He’s just an old man trying to intimidate us.” Jonah gives the logs in the fieldstone fireplace a stab with the cast-iron poker. Of the two of us, he’s certainly handling today’s unpleasant surprises with more grace than I am.
“Well, it worked because we’re never stepping foot on his property again. Especially not with those wolves. You can’t keep wolves for pets. We should report him.”
“They’re not wolves. Hybrids, maybe, though I haven’t heard of any trained to listen like that. But sendin’ the cops to our neighbor on our first day probably isn’t the best way to start out here.” Jonah eases away from the fireplace. “Whatever. That’s another plus to living where we are. If you hate your neighbors, you don’t have to see ’em.”
Finally satisfied with the interior of the fridge after having worked on it for the past hour, I peel the rubber gloves off with a sigh. “That’s one thing done.” Only a million more to go.
I catch the telltale whir of speeding snow machine engines. Jonah wanders over to the big bay window to peer out on the frozen clearing as several race past, their headlights dull beams in the evening’s dusk.
“Isn’t this our private lake?”
“Yup.” He sucks back a sip from his bottle of beer. “Phil probably didn’t care, though.”
“Phil was probably already unconscious from whiskey by now.” My focus trails the departing taillights. “Wonder if they trespass on Roy’s property, too.”
“I hope so. Screw Roy.” He frowns as he inspects the sliver in his index finger, earned while fussing with the gate into the animal pen earlier.
“How’s Bandit doing out there with his new friend?”
Jonah chuckles. “He’s confused. I cleaned out the chicken coop and locked him in there for the night so they can see each other but they’re separated.” He drags his index finger along a row of book spines on the bookshelf tucked beneath the stairs. It’s stuffed with dust-covered books, magazines, and board games.
Much like every other corner of this house, stuffed with one thing or another. I opened a closet earlier and was assaulted by an avalanche of mismatched Tupperware containers.
“I don’t know where to start,” I admit, fumbling with the stack of black garbage bags, my gaze drifting to the garish five-light chandelier hanging above. It’s too small for the double-story room, and three of its bulbs have burned out. “Did you see a ladder anywhere?” Phil has left everything else. He must have left a ladder, too.
“Think I saw one in the workshop. We’ll get to that tomorrow.” Jonah stretches his arms above his head as he saunters over to me. “Start with this.” He tops up my wine to brimming. “And this.” He flips open the lid on a pizza box—the one without cheese, for me—that we grabbed at the only pizza shop in Trapper’s Crossing on our way home. “I’ll haul the mattress upstairs and we can make our bed. And then we’ll crack that bottle of champagne and relax. Tomorrow, we’ll start dealing with everything else.”
“You make it sound so easy.” My arm feels heavy as I reach for my drink. My mental exhaustion has drained me.
He gently clinks the neck of his bottle against my glass. “It is.”
“I’m glad you think so.” I plaster on an innocent smile and pat the extra-large yellow rubber gloves on the counter. “Because these are for you, to scrub the drunk-man pee off that bathroom floor up there.”
He slips my glass from my hand and scoops me into his arms. “Told you, Calla, I don’t care. I have you and my planes, we have this place …” His eyes are bright and wistful as they roam the beams in the pitched ceiling. “We have it all.”
Chapter Eleven
“What did the contract say?”
“I’d have to go back and check.”
“Well, you must be able to do something.” My mother’s astonished tone carries well over the phone’s speaker, even from thousands of miles away. “Bill him for a cleaning company or for your time. At the very least, you need to complain to the agent. Didn’t they inspect it before you arrived?”
I stifle my groan, knowing I’m about to get an earful as I admit, “There was no agent. It was a private sale.” A lawyer in Wasilla managed all the paperwork—the contract, the title and lien search, and a bunch of other things I don’t care to know about.
“No agent!” She makes a sound. “Well, no wonder!” To say my mother is unimpressed that we haven’t heeded her warnings and rented rather than bought is a glaring understatement.
“I’m sure it saved them some money on commission fees, Susan.” Simon’s typically calm voice is a challenge. I can picture them squaring off in the living room—my mom with her face painted and her hair coiffed, spearing Simon with an exasperated look; Simon, with his afternoon cup of tea in hand and a BBC special on mute in the background, his eyebrows arched in a “she’s a grown woman, living with a grown man, making her own decisions and mistakes” way.
“We did save money. Phil knocked the price down by six percent,” I confirm, reaching deep into the cabinet with a gloved hand to fish out something metal from the corner. I frown at the manual hand beater that appears. Likely forgotten about decades ago. One for the donation box. “Whatever. It’s not the end of the world. The upstairs is completely cleared out and we’re making good headway down here.” Four days in and we’ve turned over decades’ worth of household goods and sentimental junk from almost every cupboard. Our main floor looks like a hoarder’s paradise but there’s a system to the chaos—boxes line the narrow hallway, waiting for Jonah to haul burnables to the fire; items worth keeping are piled on the kitchen counters and the small dining table, for washing and organizing later; donations for the local Salvation Army fill the living room floor. Everything else goes straight into a black plastic bag. There are seventeen bags of trash and counting.
“And the old owner doesn’t want any of it?” My mother can’t seem to get past her abhorrence.
“Nope.” I climb to my feet and head for the living room, where we’ve pushed aside the floppy couch and scuffed side tables to make room. “Jonah called him yesterday. He said to throw out whatever we don’t want.”
“That’s bizarre.” My mom’s sigh carries over the speaker. “Where’s Jonah, anyway?”
“At the fire pit.” He’s been out there since the sky began to lighten this morning. The plume of smoke that rises is dark and thick and full of ash, and every time he comes in to swap an empty box for a full one, he carries with him the scent of charred paper and burnt wood.
Not that I can complain. I’ve been cleaning in the same clothes for the past four days—a baggy sweatshirt and a pair of sweatpants that I found in a dresser full of women’s clothes in the bedroom. They’re now coated in grime, dust, and cleaner.
“Have you had a chance to photograph anything good yet?” Simon asks, with a glimmer of excitement. He once admitted that, at one point in his life, he dreamed of being a nature photographer. My own skills with the camera—his Canon that I have claimed as my own—are in part thanks to his amateur teachings.