Page 60 of Leave It to Us
“How much do you think the termite termination is going to cost?” Yvonne asked. “Because I’m presuming we’re not moving forward with anything else until that’s done.”
“A really rough estimate, I’d say about nine thousand, just because we’d want to thoroughly fumigate this area of the house and the ground. Then we have to replace the structure here and here.” He pointed tothe gutted-out portions of the house. “Replace the siding—we were already painting the entire house, so that’s no extra charge over here. The biggest issue is going to be the time setback while we wait for this to get done to finish up the plumbing. Hitch and I’ve been working on revising the schedule so we can get some of the final touches on some of the other rooms done while we wait. Paint the main living room and the parlor and the foyer. The wainscoting you wanted in the dining room is in, so we can get that installed. I think the new drapes are in too, so they can be hung. So what I’m saying is, there’s stuff we can do to try and keep as much moving as possible while we take care of this issue.”
“Okay, that sounds doable,” Tami said. “I wanted to talk to you about Grandma Betty’s room and changing out the fixtures in her private bathroom.”
“What? Are you serious?” Lana asked. “You’re just going to start talking about doing something else when we haven’t figured out how we’re going to come up with the money to do all of this? Termite treatment definitely wasn’t in our budget.”
“No, it wasn’t, Lana.” Yvonne started coming over to stand next to her. Lana knew that tone: her older sister was about to start consoling her, and the last thing she wanted was to be consoled. She wanted this damn renovation to be over with.
She was tired of waking up every morning to banging, and she was tired of eating every single thing that Ms.Janie—or now, Mama Jo—was sending over for them. She was annoyed at not having a Starbucks down the block, where she could just take a ten-minute walk to get a venti caramel macchiato with extra caramel. She missed rolling over and feeling Isaac’s warm body throughout the night. Missed her chair by the window in their bedroom where she could sit and stare out at the city.
“We can talk about the budget,” Yvonne continued. “But I think right now, the important thing is to keep the guys working on what they can. We don’t want to get any further behind than this is already going to put us.”
“How can you say that?” Lana asked, knowing she sounded like she was overreacting. The way her sisters and Deacon were looking at her made that perfectly clear. But she wasn’t. This was exactly what she’d been afraid would happen: extra expenses—and once they started, they’d become like an avalanche, burying the three of them instead of rescuing Lana and her marriage the way she’d prayed this house would. “I told you this would happen. I told you we were getting in over our heads and we should’ve just sold this house from the start.”
“Andwedecided that we were going to try and do what Grandma Betty wanted,” Tami countered.
“That’s whatyouwant, Tami. You don’t know what the hell Grandma Betty wanted, with her cryptic will and these ridiculous instructions she’s fed everybody.” Lana wanted to just run upstairs and pack her bags, but she knew that wasn’t possible. Just as she knew her yelling and being so disagreeable today wasn’t going to change a damn thing. They were too far into this renovation to turn back now. They’d have to see it through to the end, even if it ended up breaking each one of them.
“Okay,” Yvonne said, putting a hand on Lana’s shoulder. “I’m not afraid to tell you to calm down.” Her sister was speaking in her motherly tone now, and it irked Lana, but she didn’t say anything in response. “We’re going to head back into the house, get us a cup of tea, and sit down and talk about this rationally. And we’ll figure it out, Lana. You know we always figure things out.”
“No,” she said quietly. “Youalways figure things out, Yvonne. That’s your job. We just decide if we’re going to follow along or not.”
It was unfair and she knew it, and she wanted to take the words back just as soon as they’d tumbled out of her mouth, but she couldn’t.
Yvonne dropped her hand from Lana’s shoulder. “I’m going to the house. You coming, Tami?”
“Right behind you,” Tami said.
“Good,” Yvonne replied. “Deacon, you and your crew move on with your work. Let me know what time the termite people will arrive tomorrow. I want to be here.”
“I’ll be here too,” Tami said.
Then the two of them walked away without looking back or waiting for Lana to follow.
When they were gone, she let her head fall back. “Dammit!” she cursed.
“At the risk of angering you any further, I’m going to just say that the cup of tea might do you good,” Deacon said quietly. “You look like you’re really struggling with something right now. Maybe your sisters can help you with whatever it is.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know anything about me or what I’m going through. And you don’t really know my sisters.” The instant the words were out, she wanted to yank them back or at least dial her ire back so the words didn’t hold such a sour tinge to them.
He shrugged. “Maybe not, but a blind man can see you’re upset. Too upset for this to just be about some termites.”
He was right: this wasn’t just about the termites, but she wasn’t interested in this man romantically, like Yvonne was, so she didn’t need to give him a list of reasons why she felt like her life was being tossed around in the funnel of a tornado. “We don’t have the extra money for this, Deacon, and you know it. And Tami still wants to do work on the blue house over there. How’s all that going to happen?”
“My mama always said if you have faith the size of a mustard seed ...”
Lana nodded. “You can move mountains. Yeah, I know the scripture. Grandma Betty used to recite it to us too.” And she’d listened to it, had fallen on that concept more times than she could recall.
When her mother had insisted she wouldn’t support Lana’s change to photography, Lana didn’t have a clue how she was going to make it happen, but she’d had faith that the Lord wouldn’t give her a dreamwithout providing the tools to assist it in coming to fruition. Why couldn’t she have that faith now? Why couldn’t she just lean on His word the way she had before? Because she’d also prayed for her husband to get himself together, and that hadn’t happened.
“Listen, this is more than just a job to me. I didn’t know Ms.Betty well, but my mama adored her, looked up to the woman as if she were her second mother, so I heard a lot about her in my house growing up. I remember seeing you girls here some summers, and I know how happy that made Ms.Betty. So doing this”—he motioned toward the house—“is like a gift to me. A gift Ms.Betty gave me when she asked me to be the one to do these renovations, and a gift back to her by making it everything she ever wanted this house to be. I’m going to do whatever I can to make that happen, Lana. You can trust me on that.”
She tilted her head and gave him a wry chuckle. “Does that trust come with a check?”
Half an hour later, Lana found her sisters sitting on the front porch, both in folding chairs because the rocking chairs weren’t back yet. There was an empty third chair to Yvonne’s left, as if they’d been expecting her.
“I went to lay down for a few minutes to get my mind together,” she said as she walked up to them and took the seat.
