Chapter Three of My Novel
3
“I think your ambition may be greater than your ability.”
Sitting at the kitchen counter, Robert made the observation while looking over her list of goals for the summer.
“What are you trying to say?” Em said with raised eyebrows over her coffee cup. “You question my grasp on reality when it comes to home improvement projects?”
The reality was that Robert was an expert in these kinds of things. He had been repairing old houses years before the “flipping” craze, and he had honed his carpentry skills to the point of being an expert. If he didn’t love teaching literature so much he might consider pursuing a living as a custom woodworker. As it stands, he keeps his woodworking as a hobby and takes his time. Robert knows that when things become a job they tend to loose their attraction. He was happy to be Em’s go to guy for help this summer and wanted to keep liking his hobby for years to come.
“What I’m saying is that you may want to have some help on the projects on the outside of the house. I’m not really good at knowing how to keep things structurally sound, but I’m great at the cosmetic things you have listed here.”
Em knew that refinishing the floors was a labor of love. It would have been so much easier to call a contractor and have the job done while she explored the fjords of Norway over the summer, but that wasn’t the point. The goal was to divest the house of its emotional baggage by giving it a good cleaning. For all of her worldly travels Em still hadn’t managed to kick the Puritanistic view that giving things a good scrubbing can clean the object and the person both. The thing that worried her was the state of the wood under all of the decades of paint.
“I conceded that you may have a point about the porch. In fact,” she said with a pointed look at the truck pulling into the driveway, “my contractor is here now to take a look at a few things.”
“Well played.” Robert had a way of smiling without really smiling that let you know he appreciated how things were working out. After years of friendship Em had come to know this look and she could see how it drove the undergrads wild in his class.
Em left Robert with the list to go and talk with the contractor. Bobby Cooper’s grandson turned out to be a Steve. The two walked around the house, poking at this and that, looking under the rhodies and the overgrown ivy on the paths, making notes about the state of things. Em felt secure that Robert and Steve would find the best method of making her goals happen. When she evaluated the situation truthfully, she didn’t really want to do the work on the outside of the house herself. It was that all of the work had been lumped together in her mind and with everything that had been going on, she had been unable to admit that it was just too much for her to do. When she first came up with the list of work, getting out of bed seemed like too much for her, so what was one more seemingly impossible project when she was facing a half dozen?
Taking a step back, it was the inside of the house she wanted, needed, to work on. It was the place she had spent the most time with her mother. The outside of the house had been the domain of her father, and she had long since made peace with his death. The inside of the house had been her mother’s domain; slightly scary, sometimes off limits, and mysterious. Not that the home was unwelcoming, it was just the place for adult things like reading and conversations over dinner. These were not the things of active adventure and imaginary places that the outside was when Em was a child.
“Well, it looks like everything is sound with the foundation work,” Steve reported after a thorough inspection of the house. Em was relieved that nothing majorly major needed to be done. The worst nightmare of a home owner involved the words “foundation work” and “roof”. Neither of these had come out of Steve’s mouth, so Em was confident the project could stay in her modest budget.
After working out the details and discussing when the work would be completed, Em and Robert went to the back garden as Steve pulled out of the drive in his truck. Em’s house had one of the back yards that was typical to houses of this era: a huge amount of space, an oak tree with a swing that had been there for decades, and flower beds that tended to the wild side as maintenance became difficult in the rainy season. Now that it was June, there was no excuse for the over tall grass, so they both ignored it.
List in hand, Robert pulled out a pencil and started making notes on the projects that were now in his jurisdiction.
“The first thing we should do is take care of all of the paint on the built-ins. After we see what we have to work with, we can create a better plan of attack.”
What would they find under all of that paint? The house had “good bones” and Em couldn’t believe that the wood would turn out to be something hideous. Most of the exposed wood in the house was oak or maple, so she expected more of the same.
“Em, we may need to have some of the drawers remade. I have no idea if the space behind the drawers has remained dry for all of these years. The way that the paint has sealed the front, we may discover a pile of sawdust or rotten mush back there.”
“God, you’re optimistic aren’t you Robert?”
“Let’s just hope that I turn out to be wrong and you can thank me for saving you all of this imaginary work.” This was the way Robert worked. Think of all of the possible horrors and then give thanks that none came to pass as the project went smoothly. Em would rather think that everything was going to go well, and then deal with the problems as they come up. This idea of being glad that imaginary work never materialized was not something that she could get excited about.
Robert continued to make notes on the list, “We are going to need some things for this. I’ll head to the Home Depot tomorrow and pick up a few things and we can get started after that if you want.”
“What should I expect for tomorrow?”
“Don’t plan on being pretty, and have a few pairs of rubber gloves around. I’ll give you a lesson on stripping paint tomorrow.”
“Should I dig out the box fans?” Em was thinking of the fumes that might be associated with paint stripper and it was already giving her a headache.
“Yep, and borrow one or two from the neighbors if you can. We’ll want to keep the air moving thought the house as much as we can.”
This was not the kind of airing out Em had had in mind when she thought of cleaning the house of its past. She had more envisioned soapy water and some sawdust, not toxic fumes, but it needed to get done and Em was nothing if not a goal oriented person.
The fans were creating something of a wind tunnel in the house. Em had had a complete lesson in paint removal from Robert and now the two were working on their respective sections. The surprising thing was how much sanding was involved with the process. She had known that the fumes would be bad, but the paint dust was settling on her eyelashes and everywhere else for that matter, and it was getting past the cheep mask she had bought to breath through.
The plastic tarp covering all of the furniture had to be weighted down with rocks from the garden, as Em didn’t want to use her books because they would be harder to clean than the upholstery would be. Now the edge was starting to come up and flapped a bit in the breeze the fans created. Looking over at Robert, Em wondered how he was so much faster at the sanding than she was. They were each working on the same kind of drawers, but for some reason Em had been sanding for hours and had yet to get to the last layer of paint. Robert had the majority of the paint off in the first hour and was now using the toxic solvent to remove the paint to expose the original wood finish.
“How are you doing over there Em?” Robert was equally confused as to why it was taking her so much longer to get to the next stage of the work. He was about ready to trade her places and see if it was just that she was a slow learner, but he knew that she had understood the lesson and would be offended if he butted in at this stage.
“It’s like I have three layers of paint for every one layer you had on that one.” Wondering if maybe her mother had let her paint this one when she was a child and that could explain why the paint was so thick, she smiled and remembered that she was never around for home improvement projects when she was a kid. Her mother had kept her summers filled with so many camps all over the country that she rarely was around for any of the gardening, painting, or mowing that most kids suffered though. When most kids were just starting to be allowed to ride their bikes past the corner, Em was spending her summers learning about ancient civilizations, learning languages, and seeing the sights that inspire the best stories of the world.
“I wish I could tell you why this one is taking so much longer, but I have no idea.” Throwing her hands up, Em looked at Robert, “What do you say we take a break?”
Wiping his hands on a rag, Robert stood up and walked back to the kitchen. Opening the fridge he pulled out two beers, cracked the tops off, and held the door open to the back yard. “After you, m’lady,” he intoned in his best Shakespearian accent. The screen door thwacking shut behind him ruined the grace of his actions, but the intent was appreciated.
The two walked to the tree swing and had a seat. Em’s father had hung a proper porch swing from the tree so she could have somewhere to sit and enjoy her books. Em had asked for a tree house, but her father wasn’t willing to acknowledge that she had the heart of a warrior not of a princess, so he had created a different kind of tree house for her. In its glory day, the tree was a magical place for a little girl where fairies could play, and monsters feared to approach. Now, nearly 30 years later, all that remained of that place was the crushed sea glass lining the paths surrounding the base of the tree.
Taking greedy drinks from the bottles, the two sat and looked out over the city at the ocean. The sky was fighting off the gray pallor that can linger in coastal towns after the spring rains and the air had a salty bite in it today that inspired a desire to take the kite to the beach. The water was always too cold to swim in on the Pacific coast, but the sand did get too warm to stand on with bare feet and the salty breeze could make the most timid eater ravenous for a good meal.
“How long do you think this is going to take me?” Em couldn’t help asking Robert even though she knew there would be days of sanding in her future just to get this one cabinet done.
“Em, I think you can see how long it will take just as well as I can.”
“Come on, Robert, give a girl some hope! You know I want you to tell me that it will go faster once I get the technique down. Can’t you give me that?”
“I told you to get a contractor to come in and take care of this for you, but you are the one who insists on doing it for herself.” Robert reminded her not uncharitably.
Taking another pull from her bottle, Em gave Robert a look that told him to drop the “I told you so” bit and focus on the task at hand. The truth was, progress was being made, just not at the speed that Robert was use to with new projects. Restoring existing work, especially a labor of love like this project was, tends to take at least twice as long as creating something new. Robert would have loved to simply rip out the existing wood work and create some reproduction work that could use the space better. His personal view was that the structure of the existing cabinetry was clunky and did not use the space as well as it could. A cupboard with shelves set off with glass fronted doors would show off the family china and crystal well. Right now the set of drawers would end up being a catch all for papers and odds and ends. If Em did use the space for linens, things at the bottom would rarely see the light of day again.
Robert knew that this project of Em’s was not about making the space better or more functional. He knew that this was about Em making amends for something that happened long ago which Em still felt that she needed atone for. He had been there in those last few months with Camilla. He had also been there for the years leading up to the diagnosis. Camilla had had something obviously wrong with her, but she had always rallied when Em was around. At first Camilla had chalked her tiredness up to middle age and the normal course of decline for a woman who had always hated to exercise.
After Christopher had passed, it was easy to attribute Camilla’s constitution to the depression that normally comes with the loss of a spouse. When Em had come home from studying in Oslo, Robert had said as much to her. Camilla had pushed Em to go out and continue with her plans even though she was having a tough time. Camilla had cited her life long friends as support enough and told Em to hightail it to the land of the fjords. She had gone reluctantly, but she had gone, and Camilla had continued to decline by almost unnoticeable increments.
“You know, we all missed the signs Em.” Robert had felt horrible when Em had returned home and was shocked at the state of her mother’s health. “It happened over such a long period no one really thought much about it. Your mother was always so adamant about things. She wouldn’t let anyone bully her into thinking she was sick.”
“I know you all would have tried to get her to go to the doctor if you had seen it as something serious.”
Em did know that her mother had a life long distrust of the doctor. The reason had remained mysterious to Em, but she knew it steamed from a past experience that had terrified her mother. So great was her mother’s fear of hospitals, Em had been born at home with a midwife, not in the local general hospital.
Finishing the last drink of her beer, Em stood up from the swing and offered her hand to Robert.
“What do you say we get back into action?”
The sea glass made a soft crunching sound as the two walked back to the kitchen. The sun had started to descend in the sky, but the long summer day didn’t really heat up in this part of the world until three or four in the after noon. At that time working in the house would become oppressive and the two would quit work for the day. Robert was sure that Em had the basics and would not destroy what she was trying to save. Em, by that point in the afternoon, was ready for a siesta but not because the work was physically tiring. Her mental ability at that point was taxed and she needed to quit focusing on the house for a time. Thinking about her mother was such a heavy mental burden for Em that her whole body reacted with its weight.
“I think your ambition may be greater than your ability.”
Sitting at the kitchen counter, Robert made the observation while looking over her list of goals for the summer.
“What are you trying to say?” Em said with raised eyebrows over her coffee cup. “You question my grasp on reality when it comes to home improvement projects?”
The reality was that Robert was an expert in these kinds of things. He had been repairing old houses years before the “flipping” craze, and he had honed his carpentry skills to the point of being an expert. If he didn’t love teaching literature so much he might consider pursuing a living as a custom woodworker. As it stands, he keeps his woodworking as a hobby and takes his time. Robert knows that when things become a job they tend to loose their attraction. He was happy to be Em’s go to guy for help this summer and wanted to keep liking his hobby for years to come.
“What I’m saying is that you may want to have some help on the projects on the outside of the house. I’m not really good at knowing how to keep things structurally sound, but I’m great at the cosmetic things you have listed here.”
Em knew that refinishing the floors was a labor of love. It would have been so much easier to call a contractor and have the job done while she explored the fjords of Norway over the summer, but that wasn’t the point. The goal was to divest the house of its emotional baggage by giving it a good cleaning. For all of her worldly travels Em still hadn’t managed to kick the Puritanistic view that giving things a good scrubbing can clean the object and the person both. The thing that worried her was the state of the wood under all of the decades of paint.
“I conceded that you may have a point about the porch. In fact,” she said with a pointed look at the truck pulling into the driveway, “my contractor is here now to take a look at a few things.”
“Well played.” Robert had a way of smiling without really smiling that let you know he appreciated how things were working out. After years of friendship Em had come to know this look and she could see how it drove the undergrads wild in his class.
Em left Robert with the list to go and talk with the contractor. Bobby Cooper’s grandson turned out to be a Steve. The two walked around the house, poking at this and that, looking under the rhodies and the overgrown ivy on the paths, making notes about the state of things. Em felt secure that Robert and Steve would find the best method of making her goals happen. When she evaluated the situation truthfully, she didn’t really want to do the work on the outside of the house herself. It was that all of the work had been lumped together in her mind and with everything that had been going on, she had been unable to admit that it was just too much for her to do. When she first came up with the list of work, getting out of bed seemed like too much for her, so what was one more seemingly impossible project when she was facing a half dozen?
Taking a step back, it was the inside of the house she wanted, needed, to work on. It was the place she had spent the most time with her mother. The outside of the house had been the domain of her father, and she had long since made peace with his death. The inside of the house had been her mother’s domain; slightly scary, sometimes off limits, and mysterious. Not that the home was unwelcoming, it was just the place for adult things like reading and conversations over dinner. These were not the things of active adventure and imaginary places that the outside was when Em was a child.
“Well, it looks like everything is sound with the foundation work,” Steve reported after a thorough inspection of the house. Em was relieved that nothing majorly major needed to be done. The worst nightmare of a home owner involved the words “foundation work” and “roof”. Neither of these had come out of Steve’s mouth, so Em was confident the project could stay in her modest budget.
After working out the details and discussing when the work would be completed, Em and Robert went to the back garden as Steve pulled out of the drive in his truck. Em’s house had one of the back yards that was typical to houses of this era: a huge amount of space, an oak tree with a swing that had been there for decades, and flower beds that tended to the wild side as maintenance became difficult in the rainy season. Now that it was June, there was no excuse for the over tall grass, so they both ignored it.
List in hand, Robert pulled out a pencil and started making notes on the projects that were now in his jurisdiction.
“The first thing we should do is take care of all of the paint on the built-ins. After we see what we have to work with, we can create a better plan of attack.”
What would they find under all of that paint? The house had “good bones” and Em couldn’t believe that the wood would turn out to be something hideous. Most of the exposed wood in the house was oak or maple, so she expected more of the same.
“Em, we may need to have some of the drawers remade. I have no idea if the space behind the drawers has remained dry for all of these years. The way that the paint has sealed the front, we may discover a pile of sawdust or rotten mush back there.”
“God, you’re optimistic aren’t you Robert?”
“Let’s just hope that I turn out to be wrong and you can thank me for saving you all of this imaginary work.” This was the way Robert worked. Think of all of the possible horrors and then give thanks that none came to pass as the project went smoothly. Em would rather think that everything was going to go well, and then deal with the problems as they come up. This idea of being glad that imaginary work never materialized was not something that she could get excited about.
Robert continued to make notes on the list, “We are going to need some things for this. I’ll head to the Home Depot tomorrow and pick up a few things and we can get started after that if you want.”
“What should I expect for tomorrow?”
“Don’t plan on being pretty, and have a few pairs of rubber gloves around. I’ll give you a lesson on stripping paint tomorrow.”
“Should I dig out the box fans?” Em was thinking of the fumes that might be associated with paint stripper and it was already giving her a headache.
“Yep, and borrow one or two from the neighbors if you can. We’ll want to keep the air moving thought the house as much as we can.”
This was not the kind of airing out Em had had in mind when she thought of cleaning the house of its past. She had more envisioned soapy water and some sawdust, not toxic fumes, but it needed to get done and Em was nothing if not a goal oriented person.
The fans were creating something of a wind tunnel in the house. Em had had a complete lesson in paint removal from Robert and now the two were working on their respective sections. The surprising thing was how much sanding was involved with the process. She had known that the fumes would be bad, but the paint dust was settling on her eyelashes and everywhere else for that matter, and it was getting past the cheep mask she had bought to breath through.
The plastic tarp covering all of the furniture had to be weighted down with rocks from the garden, as Em didn’t want to use her books because they would be harder to clean than the upholstery would be. Now the edge was starting to come up and flapped a bit in the breeze the fans created. Looking over at Robert, Em wondered how he was so much faster at the sanding than she was. They were each working on the same kind of drawers, but for some reason Em had been sanding for hours and had yet to get to the last layer of paint. Robert had the majority of the paint off in the first hour and was now using the toxic solvent to remove the paint to expose the original wood finish.
“How are you doing over there Em?” Robert was equally confused as to why it was taking her so much longer to get to the next stage of the work. He was about ready to trade her places and see if it was just that she was a slow learner, but he knew that she had understood the lesson and would be offended if he butted in at this stage.
“It’s like I have three layers of paint for every one layer you had on that one.” Wondering if maybe her mother had let her paint this one when she was a child and that could explain why the paint was so thick, she smiled and remembered that she was never around for home improvement projects when she was a kid. Her mother had kept her summers filled with so many camps all over the country that she rarely was around for any of the gardening, painting, or mowing that most kids suffered though. When most kids were just starting to be allowed to ride their bikes past the corner, Em was spending her summers learning about ancient civilizations, learning languages, and seeing the sights that inspire the best stories of the world.
“I wish I could tell you why this one is taking so much longer, but I have no idea.” Throwing her hands up, Em looked at Robert, “What do you say we take a break?”
Wiping his hands on a rag, Robert stood up and walked back to the kitchen. Opening the fridge he pulled out two beers, cracked the tops off, and held the door open to the back yard. “After you, m’lady,” he intoned in his best Shakespearian accent. The screen door thwacking shut behind him ruined the grace of his actions, but the intent was appreciated.
The two walked to the tree swing and had a seat. Em’s father had hung a proper porch swing from the tree so she could have somewhere to sit and enjoy her books. Em had asked for a tree house, but her father wasn’t willing to acknowledge that she had the heart of a warrior not of a princess, so he had created a different kind of tree house for her. In its glory day, the tree was a magical place for a little girl where fairies could play, and monsters feared to approach. Now, nearly 30 years later, all that remained of that place was the crushed sea glass lining the paths surrounding the base of the tree.
Taking greedy drinks from the bottles, the two sat and looked out over the city at the ocean. The sky was fighting off the gray pallor that can linger in coastal towns after the spring rains and the air had a salty bite in it today that inspired a desire to take the kite to the beach. The water was always too cold to swim in on the Pacific coast, but the sand did get too warm to stand on with bare feet and the salty breeze could make the most timid eater ravenous for a good meal.
“How long do you think this is going to take me?” Em couldn’t help asking Robert even though she knew there would be days of sanding in her future just to get this one cabinet done.
“Em, I think you can see how long it will take just as well as I can.”
“Come on, Robert, give a girl some hope! You know I want you to tell me that it will go faster once I get the technique down. Can’t you give me that?”
“I told you to get a contractor to come in and take care of this for you, but you are the one who insists on doing it for herself.” Robert reminded her not uncharitably.
Taking another pull from her bottle, Em gave Robert a look that told him to drop the “I told you so” bit and focus on the task at hand. The truth was, progress was being made, just not at the speed that Robert was use to with new projects. Restoring existing work, especially a labor of love like this project was, tends to take at least twice as long as creating something new. Robert would have loved to simply rip out the existing wood work and create some reproduction work that could use the space better. His personal view was that the structure of the existing cabinetry was clunky and did not use the space as well as it could. A cupboard with shelves set off with glass fronted doors would show off the family china and crystal well. Right now the set of drawers would end up being a catch all for papers and odds and ends. If Em did use the space for linens, things at the bottom would rarely see the light of day again.
Robert knew that this project of Em’s was not about making the space better or more functional. He knew that this was about Em making amends for something that happened long ago which Em still felt that she needed atone for. He had been there in those last few months with Camilla. He had also been there for the years leading up to the diagnosis. Camilla had had something obviously wrong with her, but she had always rallied when Em was around. At first Camilla had chalked her tiredness up to middle age and the normal course of decline for a woman who had always hated to exercise.
After Christopher had passed, it was easy to attribute Camilla’s constitution to the depression that normally comes with the loss of a spouse. When Em had come home from studying in Oslo, Robert had said as much to her. Camilla had pushed Em to go out and continue with her plans even though she was having a tough time. Camilla had cited her life long friends as support enough and told Em to hightail it to the land of the fjords. She had gone reluctantly, but she had gone, and Camilla had continued to decline by almost unnoticeable increments.
“You know, we all missed the signs Em.” Robert had felt horrible when Em had returned home and was shocked at the state of her mother’s health. “It happened over such a long period no one really thought much about it. Your mother was always so adamant about things. She wouldn’t let anyone bully her into thinking she was sick.”
“I know you all would have tried to get her to go to the doctor if you had seen it as something serious.”
Em did know that her mother had a life long distrust of the doctor. The reason had remained mysterious to Em, but she knew it steamed from a past experience that had terrified her mother. So great was her mother’s fear of hospitals, Em had been born at home with a midwife, not in the local general hospital.
Finishing the last drink of her beer, Em stood up from the swing and offered her hand to Robert.
“What do you say we get back into action?”
The sea glass made a soft crunching sound as the two walked back to the kitchen. The sun had started to descend in the sky, but the long summer day didn’t really heat up in this part of the world until three or four in the after noon. At that time working in the house would become oppressive and the two would quit work for the day. Robert was sure that Em had the basics and would not destroy what she was trying to save. Em, by that point in the afternoon, was ready for a siesta but not because the work was physically tiring. Her mental ability at that point was taxed and she needed to quit focusing on the house for a time. Thinking about her mother was such a heavy mental burden for Em that her whole body reacted with its weight.
Comments
Post a Comment