Thanks to that diamond, I had the funds to get the worst part of the roof fixed on the main house—took the roofer two whole months—but there wasn’t time for more winterizing. Real renovations will have to wait until spring, starting with maintenance on the giant floodwall that prevents the creek from overflowing toward the house when it swells.
God, this place is work. Which is why I told Bard we need to talk and why he’s been giving me the silent treatment for weeks. He already knows what I’m going to say: The estate is enormous and requires constant care. It’s a money pit. Keeping it will eventually drain every cent I’ve got, and I still have his retirement to think of.
My hope is to fix up the main house, so it’s safe and livable, and then sell. If I do that, I should be able to double the money I can get. Money I can add to what I’ve already got. Money to start a new life, free from worry about an old house filled with too many sad memories. I hope I can get Bard to come around and accept my decision. He has until summer.
As for the general cleanup in the main house, Dave and his men helped clear out the truly unsalvageable items from the basement and first floor, but now the focus is preparing specific areas of the mansion for immediate repairs in the spring.
Sounds easy, but the west side of the house is in the worst shape. Dry rot. Termites. You name it. The contractor from town says he’ll have to tear everything down to the studs just to assess the true nature of the damage.
That means I have to clean out all three floors of rooms with west-facing walls.
On the first floor, there’s Grandma’s private study. I haven’t gone in there since she died, not even to look for her journals. Mostly because I don’t know how I’ll feel when I walk in. She won’t be sitting behind that old desk piled high with dusty books and three or more pairs of reading glasses.
She had glasses hidden all around the house since she always forgot her pair in one room and didn’t have the energy to go all the way back and retrieve them.
I smile thinking about her and her funny little routines. She was a creature of habit. Pot roast on Sundays. Baked chicken on Wednesdays. Beef stew on the days she didn’t feel like cooking because she was too wrapped up in her latest weird project—like planting quartz crystals around the entire perimeter of the grounds surrounding the main house. She said it was for good luck. I think she just liked to keep busy.
On the second floor of the main house, three of the ten guest rooms have west-facing walls along with their bathrooms and the master—yes, the room Grandma Rain told me never to enter.
And then there’s the attic.
I’ve never been up there, really. Just poked my head in a few times. There’s nothing but rotting furniture piled to the rafters, covered in a thick blanket of century-old cobwebs. It’ll take more than one person to clean that mess and more than one bottle of tequila. For nerves. It’s not my favorite part of the house, that’s for sure.
Today I’m bagging up everything I can from the guest rooms, mostly threadbare linens. The larger pieces of rotten furniture—the stuff Dave’s guys didn’t have room to haul away—will have to be unassembled and carried outside.
Honestly, now I get why Grandma never wanted me running around the house alone as a child. The rooms are filled with creaky floorboards, nails sticking up everywhere, and giant four-poster beds just perfect for jumping on. And then crashing to the floor and leaving you with a broken leg.
I once asked her why she didn’t just clean everything out, and she said, “Firewood.”
I thought it was a joke. Now I have to wonder if she kept all this rotting wood to make the house light up more easily. She said on her deathbed that I was to burn it all down should things go badly with her imaginary wall.
Goosebumps roll down my arms as I imagine her planning to light this mansion on fire to protect us all from her imaginary monsters. She hid her insanity well.
Fuck. I still feel sick to my stomach when I think about it. How did I not know she was mentally ill? Why didn’t I do more to help her? Mourning sucks, but it’s a thousand times worse when you find out the person you’re grieving over was suffering for years and you didn’t lift a finger. I’ll never forgive myself.
I put on my dust mask and walk down the long hallway to the last door, carrying a box of extra-large trash bags. Today has to be the day I clean out the master; otherwise, it’ll be on my mind over the holidays.