Read Online Smoke by Catherine McKenzie - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Catherine McKenzie
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landed a smack on Peter’s lips.
CHAPTER 9
How a House Became a Home
Elizabeth
The interview with John Phillips leaves me worn out. I don’t know if it’s the sadness that seeped from him in a way you could almost touch, or how he sat there, alone on a cot in a room crowded with them ready to take in a townful of people who hadn’t shown up yet. Ready to take in Ben and me if we didn’t have somewhere else to go.
Deputy Clark drops me off at the office, and we part with few words. At my desk, I type up my notes from the fire and the interview with John, making a list of things to follow up on tomorrow: get a copy of the police reports he mentioned, see if any other neighbors were having trouble with kids loitering on their property, try to track down the group of kids who might’ve started a fire that’s still blazing, growing. Up to six hundred acres now, according to the latest alert, with crews coming in from all over and low containment.
I check the weather forecast again and, as Kara said, it’s bad. Starting tomorrow, there’ll be wind and heat and not a drop of moisture in sight for days. I say a small prayer that the weather guys are as off as they normally are, but I’ve noticed they never seem to get it wrong when it counts. That late May snowstorm that ruins Memorial Day weekend, or that torrential rain on the Fourth of July? Those always seem to happen. But the cooler, cloudy day needed after a heat wave? That occurs by fluke—unexpected, almost unbidden.
“Well, folks, we’re not sure what happened exactly, but that beautiful day we predicted just didn’t seem to materialize. Instead, a high ridge of . . . ”
And what’s with the singsong voices they deliver the weather in, anyway?
But, yeah, it’s looking bad. No matter which way you shake it.
I close down my computer and text Ben: Meet me at the house now?
His answer comes a moment later: I’m on my way .
Located in the western foothills of Nelson Peak, our house isn’t something a wildland firefighter and a teacher could have afforded but for Grace and Gordon’s generosity.
We never planned on owing money to them, or to anyone for that matter. It was something we both hated, debt, being in debt, owing things to other people. We had that in common. But our house, well, we both fell in love with it the first time we saw it.
And love makes you do funny things sometimes.
We’d been looking at much smaller places on the valley floor. Small houses, on shady streets, that looked like they hadn’t been properly winterized. I’d go into one of them, and all I could see were the problems: the bathrooms that needed to be redone, the kitchens that required ripping out, not because I was so picky, but because it was a question of basic sanitation. A town where a third of the population is transient is hard on the real estate. And the thought of scrubbing off years’ worth of ski-bum grime defeated me.
But we were near to closing on one of the better-than-the-others houses because we needed somewhere to live—our current place, a rental, was being repo-ed by the bank, and they didn’t want a tenant—when I saw an ad in the Nelson Daily . A newly finished A-frame with a view of the mountains, surrounded by large aspens. I could imagine the break they’d bring from the summer heat, and the shimmering gold they’d turn in the fall.
Ben looked skeptical when I showed him the listing, but I could see a light in his eyes. And it was shining out of both of us as we walked around the sun-filled house and breathed in the smell of freshly sawn lumber.
We could have a family here, I thought. It’s perfect.
The real estate agent was blathering on about square footage and how it was a hot property market and we’d better scoop up the house while we could. But when I saw the asking price—and we’d better come in at asking, the agent told us—my heart sank.
“We can’t afford this,” I whispered to Ben while we were pretending
CHAPTER 9
How a House Became a Home
Elizabeth
The interview with John Phillips leaves me worn out. I don’t know if it’s the sadness that seeped from him in a way you could almost touch, or how he sat there, alone on a cot in a room crowded with them ready to take in a townful of people who hadn’t shown up yet. Ready to take in Ben and me if we didn’t have somewhere else to go.
Deputy Clark drops me off at the office, and we part with few words. At my desk, I type up my notes from the fire and the interview with John, making a list of things to follow up on tomorrow: get a copy of the police reports he mentioned, see if any other neighbors were having trouble with kids loitering on their property, try to track down the group of kids who might’ve started a fire that’s still blazing, growing. Up to six hundred acres now, according to the latest alert, with crews coming in from all over and low containment.
I check the weather forecast again and, as Kara said, it’s bad. Starting tomorrow, there’ll be wind and heat and not a drop of moisture in sight for days. I say a small prayer that the weather guys are as off as they normally are, but I’ve noticed they never seem to get it wrong when it counts. That late May snowstorm that ruins Memorial Day weekend, or that torrential rain on the Fourth of July? Those always seem to happen. But the cooler, cloudy day needed after a heat wave? That occurs by fluke—unexpected, almost unbidden.
“Well, folks, we’re not sure what happened exactly, but that beautiful day we predicted just didn’t seem to materialize. Instead, a high ridge of . . . ”
And what’s with the singsong voices they deliver the weather in, anyway?
But, yeah, it’s looking bad. No matter which way you shake it.
I close down my computer and text Ben: Meet me at the house now?
His answer comes a moment later: I’m on my way .
Located in the western foothills of Nelson Peak, our house isn’t something a wildland firefighter and a teacher could have afforded but for Grace and Gordon’s generosity.
We never planned on owing money to them, or to anyone for that matter. It was something we both hated, debt, being in debt, owing things to other people. We had that in common. But our house, well, we both fell in love with it the first time we saw it.
And love makes you do funny things sometimes.
We’d been looking at much smaller places on the valley floor. Small houses, on shady streets, that looked like they hadn’t been properly winterized. I’d go into one of them, and all I could see were the problems: the bathrooms that needed to be redone, the kitchens that required ripping out, not because I was so picky, but because it was a question of basic sanitation. A town where a third of the population is transient is hard on the real estate. And the thought of scrubbing off years’ worth of ski-bum grime defeated me.
But we were near to closing on one of the better-than-the-others houses because we needed somewhere to live—our current place, a rental, was being repo-ed by the bank, and they didn’t want a tenant—when I saw an ad in the Nelson Daily . A newly finished A-frame with a view of the mountains, surrounded by large aspens. I could imagine the break they’d bring from the summer heat, and the shimmering gold they’d turn in the fall.
Ben looked skeptical when I showed him the listing, but I could see a light in his eyes. And it was shining out of both of us as we walked around the sun-filled house and breathed in the smell of freshly sawn lumber.
We could have a family here, I thought. It’s perfect.
The real estate agent was blathering on about square footage and how it was a hot property market and we’d better scoop up the house while we could. But when I saw the asking price—and we’d better come in at asking, the agent told us—my heart sank.
“We can’t afford this,” I whispered to Ben while we were pretending
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