Page 48 of Broken SEAL'S Secret Baby
“Don’t start by bulldozing down all those houses,” she says. “At least give people a chance to come get things out of them. Or maybe set up a city museum or something.”
“The agent I sent out here to look at it before the corporation bought it said that most of the places were riddled with termites, and could not be reclaimed,” I say.
“Just go slow,” Kate coaxes, “Give the former residents a chance to have some say.”
“All right,” I say. “There isn’t much going on in the way of construction anywhere right now. We can give it some time. Meanwhile, maybe we can go through the records, and see which places lack possible heirs, and if any of them are sound enough to use. I’ve got a caravan of 3000 or so people who need a place to get out of the rain.”
“GoGetters grocery should have a solid roof,” Kate says. “Dad was on the board of directors when it was part of the farming coop. James wasn’t very happy about it, but Mom approved the sale of the store property. She, Aunt Ninny, and Uncle TooHot were influential in getting the rest of the board to sell.”
If I hadn’t been driving, I would have stuck my finger in my ear and rooted around in there to see if I had some kind of blockage or a malfunctioning hearing aid.
“So, Miss Daughter of Propertied Landowners, what other surprise assets do you have?”
“None,” she assures me. “I received a cash settlement that I spent on going to college. James inherited the farm. Mom officially has lifetime residency, but she and Dad moved into an assisted living facility because Dad was becoming a danger to himself and others. The rest of the money from the sale was put into a trust for Aunt Ninny and Uncle Toohot. Social Security barely covers rent these days.”
“Oh.” I have no idea what else to say. I can see that she is staring out the window, looking a little sad.
“So, yeah,” she says, “I really am exactly as advertised: a poor college student, on the cusp of getting my degree. When the farm makes a profit, which it has not for a long time, I get a share. You saved me from living on my brother’s charity.”
“Oh, Kate,” I say, desperate to erase the sadness I heard in her tones, “You rescued me. I . . .” Again the words hover on my lips, but I am afraid to say them. I am terrified that “I love you” will scare her away, or maybe scare me away. It is hardto tell the difference. “I was wallowing. Drowning. Manuela was doing her best to hold things together, and she’s brilliant. But think. . . where would Cece and I have been if you hadn’t arrived in the nick of time?”
Kate laughs, as I’d hoped she would. “You’d have been knee deep in dog poop with nothing to wear that didn’t smell like cat pee, and eating room service food because you couldn’t find the pantry.”
I laugh, too, at her description of our fate without her. “Exactly. More than that, Kate, you center me. You help keep me steady. I wouldn’t be able to move today without that lovely massage you gave me last night. And . . .”
“And little pitchers have big ears,” Kate cautions, tipping her head meaningfully toward the back seat.
The homily elicits another soft chuckle from me. “So they do. Trust me, Kate. I’m glad that being with me has value for you, but you’ve given far more than you’ve received.”
“I love Miss Kate. And she loves me,” Cece pipes up from the backseat.
“So she does,” I say, thinking of Emily’s last instruction to find someone who would love Cece. I hold out my hand to Kate. She lays her hand in mine and squeezes gently.
Then she says in her most quelling schoolteacher voice, “Eyes on the road, Mr. Charles. Hands on the wheel.”
“Yes, Ma’am,” I reply, feeling happier than I had in months. Maybe even in years.
Chapter twenty
Kate
The next several weeks are busy ones. The old GoGetters Grocery building gets turned into “Spindizzy Municipal Center.” Charles puts Manuela onto tracking former owners of each of the houses, and to setting up the ones that have no living heirs either to be renovated or torn down. James is deeply involved in that, since we knew many of the former residents.
I have my hands full with keeping track of the pets and Cece. Manuela locates a recently constructed tract home on the outskirts of Spindizzy for us to move into. The house had not sold before the contractor went bankrupt. It isn’t a particularly inspired construction, but it has four bedrooms, a couple of walk-in closets, two bathrooms, a decent kitchen with plenty of cabinets, and a fenced backyard. More than that, it has never been lived in, and aside from a coating of dust, it is completely ready for occupancy.
I am sitting on the back porch of the tract house, reading “Ransom of Red Chief” to Cece. Recently, the escapades of the eleven-year-old boy who punked his kidnappers hasbecome one of Cece’s favorites. I have just reached the end, where the kidnappers pay rescuers to take the boy back, when James calls.
There were twelve other houses left by the bankrupt contractor, and Charles quickly moved his office staff into them. And, because isolation is still the most effective prevention for the pandemic, he has caused a communications tower to be erected over the municipal center. Manuela continues to act as gatekeeper and communications officer.
“Why couldn’t you have done that?” I complain at the image of my brother on the phone screen, completing my thoughts out loud.
“Done what?” James asks over the connection.
“Put up a wi-fi tower so we could have good Internet,” I grumble.
“Oh, I don’t know,” James pretends to speculate, “Maybe because I don’t have a multi-million-dollar corporation to draw on for funding? Those things don’t come cheap, you know.”
“I get it,” Kate says, watching Cece make her way up a climbing net to the platform of a pirate-themed play set.
