Raising Attabury: A Contemporary Christian Epic-Novel (The Grace Series Book 5) Read online

  That widened Greg’s eyes. “Not that I know of or remember.”

  “The house wasn’t in the Attabury name anymore when we bought it,” Eric said. “It was some Langley person, I think.”

  “So she probably lived out here by herself,” Caleb said, filling in pieces with imagination and logic. “The stairs got to be too much, so she or somebody moved her stuff downstairs, and she used the outhouse rather than the bathroom upstairs.”

  As crazy as it sounded and he would never have told Dani this, Eric’s heart hurt a little for the old woman. What it must’ve been like to live all alone all the way out here. How lonely and sad her final days must have been.

  Caleb let out a breath. “I talked to Derek yesterday. I think Rachel and I are going to make a quick trip out to California to work out the details on the show.” He sighed again. “Rachel’s still helping out at the school, and she doesn’t want to take off yet because she only gets so many sick days in a year. So we were thinking about going on Martin Luther King weekend. That would skirt the days off thing. We’ll be signing the papers with H&H then, I guess. I’m thinking we could probably start clearing the place out like the first weekend in February if the weather cooperates. I don’t know that we need that on camera although they might send a skeleton crew out just to get some establishing shots of what it looks like now.” He crossed his arms and shook his head. “I sure wish I was better at all of this so I wouldn’t sound like I was winging all this, but the truth is, I am kind of winging all this.”

  Greg laughed. “I think we all kind of do that.” He turned to Eric. “What do you say we get some measurements of down here? That way we can draw up some plans over the next two weeks and get a structural package ordered and on its way.”

  Eric nodded, really liking the comradery of the little group. “Sounds good.”

  The piano on the stairs turned out to be more fun than Dani had even imagined. Holding Jaden’s hand, she straightened them both on the stairs and then letting go went down two.

  “Okay, let’s try you there and me here. We’ll go slow. Ready? One, two, three.”

  “And then Mom and I played a whole song,” Jaden said later, the excitement still bubbling from her as Eric watched his little girl bouncing in front of him in their living room. “It was so cool.”

  “So cool,” Dani said, and her smile shone in her eyes.

  “Man,” Eric said. “I wish I could have been there. We’re going to have to go again sometime.”

  “They’re open tomorrow,” Jaden said, and she bounced her eyebrows as her parents laughed together.

  “You’ve got to watch this one,” Dani said. “I think she’s going to take after her mother. She talked me into going to the STEM room three times, and I think we played on that piano for an hour or more.”

  “We should go, Daddy. We should go.”

  He nodded, happier than he had been in a very long time. “I’ll tell you what. It’s going to be a couple weeks before we have to go back to Ridgemount. Why don’t we just figure on going week after next?”

  Jaden’s eyes widened. “Can we, Mom? Can we?”

  His wife’s smile drifted over his heart. “We’ll see.”

  “It sounds like Ja really enjoyed today,” Eric said later as he slid into bed. It had been a whirlwind day of Attabury, driving and then catching up with them. They hadn’t ended up watching a movie or doing much of anything else, but that was okay. He felt closer to both of them than he had in a long while.

  “She did. I can’t believe how fast she’s growing up.” At the little vanity, Dani sat removing her makeup from the day.

  Eric couldn’t help but think she was even more beautiful than he remembered from when he had left. The phone lay on the nightstand, but he didn’t so much as even pick it up. “I hear you there.” He knew they needed to talk, to hammer out some of the design details. “You know, if you have some time tomorrow, we probably need to sketch out some of the plans for the house. Greg and I got the measurements, and he’s going to run it through one of his design programs and start sending me possibilities. We’ve never really talked about what you want or how you want it.”

  The sigh encompassed her whole being as she laid the little pad on the vanity. “Do you think I’m completely crazy?”

  That backed him up. Yes? No? What was the right answer? The answer she most wanted to hear? “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She sighed again, and when she stood to walk over to the bed, she looked more like she was dragging herself than walking. Getting into bed, she sat back against the pillows and let her shoulders drop.

  The change in her sent shock waves through him, and he remembered with no trouble at all the day she had sat by him in the little window seat at school, looking completely defeated.

  “It’s just this whole house thing. I mean, do we really have time to do this with everything else that’s going on?”

  “Everything else?”

  She put her head back. “I talked to Mom today.”

  Worry trounced over him. “Oh, yeah? What’d she say?”

  A heavy, wet blanket of sadness dripped over her face. Dani shook her head, her gaze sliding down to her hands. “Sounds like the divorce will be final by the end of the month.”

  Slowly Eric nodded, knowing this news was coming but not sure what the proper response to it was supposed to be.

  “They’re having an open house next weekend with the place,” Dani continued, unabated. “The realtor thinks they should drop the price, but Mom’s adamant that they can get at least asking for it.”

  Eric’s gaze slid across her. “What does your dad think?”

  The fight against the tears was evident though she succeeded in letting none fall. “I think he just wants out. Mom said she thinks they’ll be married by Valentine’s if everything goes through with the divorce like it’s supposed to.”

  “Wow,” Eric said, speechless by the shocking speed of his father-in-law’s betrayal and approaching wedding to his secretary, Celeste.

  “Yeah.” She sniffed, smashed her mouth together, and nodded. “Mom’s thrilled.”

  “I can imagine.” He dipped his head to get a better look at her. “How’re you doing?”

  Dani snorted softly. “Oh, you know.” She shrugged. “I’ll just be glad when it’s all over and we can get on with life.”

  He wasn’t at all sure that was the truth, but arguing with her in this fragile state didn’t seem like the best idea.

  “So,” she said, picking her head up though that took a good amount of effort, “the house is okay then? Attabury, I mean. It hasn’t fallen down yet?”

  The center of Eric’s heart plummeted like it had been pushed from a cliff. With everything in him he wanted to reach over to her and hold her, but he didn’t. She had never been one to accept such spontaneous displays of affection, and he was sure it wouldn’t be welcome now. “No. It’s still up.” He let out a breath to gauge her reaction, which didn’t come. “Caleb and Rachel are going to California end of next week to sign the papers with the network. They think we’ll be able to get in and clean the place up around the first of February. Greg and I are going to start figuring out the structural so we can get a lumber package in and not have to keep them waiting when they’re ready.”

  “A lumber package?” she asked, sounding almost solid again. “What’s that for?”

  Did she really not know? Was she being willfully ignorant? He would have thought a lumber package would have been obvious. However, he held all of those things back. “Well, we have to get that ceiling braced and the stairs stable before we really do much of anything else. That ceiling in the living room is about to come down, and we certainly don’t want anyone to get hurt over this deal. In fact, I was talking to Caleb today, and I think maybe him, Derek, and me will brace the place up before their crews even get in to do much of anything.”

  “Is the ceiling really that bad?”

  He laughed softly. “Yeah. It’s real
ly that bad. I can’t believe it’s even still together as bad as it looks.”

  “And the stairs too?” she asked, sounding less and less solid.

  “They’re not safe,” he said, stating the obvious bluntly. “Caleb and Derek went up there a couple weeks ago, and they really shouldn’t have.” He thought back to the house. “One of the things we’re going to have to decide is what to do with the parlor.”

  Her expression buckled. “Parlor? The living room?”

  “No. There’s a parlor room off of the entry. It was locked from the kitchen and we practically had to force our way in from the entry. It’s a pretty nice big room. From the looks of things old Mrs. Attabury was probably using it for her bedroom at the end.”

  A hard scowl drained down Dani’s face. “How do you figure that?”

  “Well, there was a bed in there and an armoire. We figure she probably couldn’t manage the stairs anymore, so she set up the bedroom down there.”

  “But the bath is upstairs.”

  He nodded. “I know. Caleb was telling us that Rachel remembers stories of her going outside to the outhouse with a shotgun. Skunks and teenagers is what he said. I don’t know. Seems plausible to me.”

  “I’m not using an outhouse.”

  “Yeah, not a fan of that idea either. There is a little room off the kitchen. It looked like the servant’s quarters or something. We could…”

  Hot anger replaced the scowl. “We don’t want a bathroom off the kitchen.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t have to be a full. We could do a powder room down there. The plumbing would be…”

  “Eww. No. I don’t want a toilet off of my kitchen. That’s awful. No. I’m not doing that. That’s not even an option.”

  Somehow he hadn’t expected the vehemence or the venom. “Yeah. Well… That’s… I get that. I’m just not sure…”

  “We’ll just have to put it somewhere else. By the living room or something. We’ll add on if we have to.”

  Panic lit through Eric. He was pretty sure she didn’t have a clue how much doing something like that would cost. Plus the structure’s footprint didn’t lend itself to just adding on very easily. His mind went through the place with lightning speed, and not one area of it would be an easy thing to add on to.

  “You know,” she said suddenly. “I’m really beat. Can we talk about this tomorrow?”

  He wanted to talk now. They were here, together. But he knew better than to push it. “Yeah. Okay. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

  Dani wants a power room on the main floor, Eric wrote to Greg the next afternoon as he sat in the living room. The football game was on, but it wasn’t holding any of his interest. Not sure where to put one as she doesn’t want it off the kitchen. She said we could add on??? Doesn’t sound like a workable plan to me, but you’re the expert. You got any ideas?

  Just as she came in and sat down to fold laundry, he reached up and hit send.

  “Ja, did you get your homework done?” Dani asked in that drill sergeant voice of hers that grated across Eric’s nerves.

  “No.”

  “What do you have?”

  “Just some math.”

  “Well, it’s about time to get it done, don’t you think?”

  Jaden rolled up off the floor. “I guess so.” The child ambled from the room.

  “Don’t know why I always have to be the bad guy around here,” Dani muttered as she snapped towels to fold them. “If Mom would’ve had to ask us, we’d have been grounded for a month. That child.”

  Eric let a very slow breath out. He’d wanted to talk about the house, but it was clear doing that would be a one-way ticket to a horror show he wanted no part of being in the middle of. He closed the laptop and set it off to the side before standing to go to the kitchen. He didn’t know what they were eating for dinner, but he was pretty sure it would be take out if someone didn’t start something soon.

  “You going to Greensboro tomorrow?” Dani asked when he’d just breached the kitchen door.

  “What?” he asked, coming back.

  “I said, ‘Are you going to Greensboro tomorrow?’”

  “Probably. We’re getting pretty close on Phase 1.”

  She snapped another towel. “Then I need to get Carly to pick up Ja. I’m going to be swamped this week. I’ve got late meetings Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.”

  Feeling the words hit him like arrows, Eric nodded. “Maybe I can make it back early Tuesday or Wednesday to get Ja.”

  “From school?” Dani asked in shock.

  “Well, yeah. Would that be bad?”

  She shrank half an inch. “Well, no. It’s just… you’ve never…” The words got swallowed on their way out.

  “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll see if I can swing it.”

  “Oh,” she said as if that made more sense. “Okay. Fine. Whatever.”

  Chapter 5

  I think I figured out the powder room issue.

  Eric sat forward as he read the email from Greg the next Wednesday.

  There’s a small closet in the parlor that’s tucked behind the door back in that corner. I’m guessing behind it is open space from the landing above. Not sure how much head room we can steal from above it, but it might be just enough. Your thoughts?

  “We’ve got the plans in for the revamp of Phase 3,” Bill said, coming into Eric’s office with no introduction or formalities. With that, Eric closed the laptop. Attabury would have to wait.

  If Dani could have pitched Scotland off the map and been done with it, she would have in a heartbeat. Things had been going so smoothly, too smoothly. She should have known something like this would come up. Joel was already waiting for her in the conference room to discuss and fix this latest issue with the city, and she was late.

  Grabbing up her cell phone as she gathered her briefcase and paperwork, she juggled it all and sent a panicked message to Eric. Carly was down with the flu, and Mrs. McGuire was out of town visiting grandchildren. Like it or not, it was time he lived up to his promise to get their daughter from school.

  As Eric perused the new plans, he made a few minor changes to them here and there, but basically, the project was ready to be presented for final approval by the state. Paperwork. He hated this part of the job. His cell phone beeped on his beltline just as Bill finished up. Pulling it out, he swiped it on to find Dani’s message.

  I won’t be home ‘til LATE. Carly’s sick. McGuire gone. Can you PLEASE pick up J after school?

  The message drilled a good portion of guilt into Eric. He had thought he would be able to get off and get Jaden the week before, but that time never materialized. In quick succession he thought through his schedule for the rest of the afternoon.

  What time do I need to be there?

  It was several minutes before the reply came back, and he retrieved the phone from his desk.

  No later than 3:15. After that we get charged for after school.

  K, he replied. I’ll get her.

  Dani didn’t have time to reply. She was already texting under the cover of the conference table.

  “Dani, we need to call Marguarite with Hopkins & Wallace,” Joel, they guy who was essentially her boss, said. “This thing got hung up on the trade thing again.”

  “Got it. I’ll get on it.”

  People, people, and more people.

  They were literally everywhere on the little street leading to the school. Eric barely got his vehicle out of the main street leading to the school without being smashed. Who thought this system was a good idea?

  Someone honked behind him, but it really didn’t do them any good because he couldn’t go anywhere anyway. In Jaden’s three years here, he had only been to pick her up once, and he was pretty sure that was early fall of her kindergarten year. It wasn’t his fault. Being out of town and all the way across town, it wasn’t like he could just take off work to come get her at three every afternoon. Thank goodness for Carly, the college student who desperately needed work, or he d
idn’t know what they would have done.

  Inching forward, two tire-rolls at a time, his gaze swept the chaos. He should have asked Dani which side of the building she would be on. This could take hours to find her. The little cell phone beeped, and he almost reached for it, but his gaze caught at just that moment on the police cruiser sitting at the next intersection. He well knew about the ban on cell phones and other devices in school zones at loading and unloading time. Since he didn’t have $500 to give to the city, he figured his best bet was to ignore the thing until they got out of this mess.

  Another tire roll and the cell beeped again. It was going to keep doing that until he answered it. Studiously, he kept his attention focused forward as he tried to sort out just who of the kids was the tallest. That would at least give him a clue where she might be.

  What color coat had she worn this morning anyway? He remembered the royal blue one, but was that what she wore for school? He couldn’t remember. Worse, all the little girls looked amazingly similar. Hairstyles a bit different maybe. Faces different. And many with different coloring, but no outstanding features for him to easily pick his out of the masses.

  The cell phone dinged again, raking over his patience. With a sigh and a quick glance around, he pulled it out and swiped it on.

  She’s at Building C.

  Quickly, he pitched the thing into the other seat as his gaze slid up to and around the building. C. C. C. C. He had no idea what that meant.

  The line was rolling now, and he continued forward, trying to figure out if this was even the line he was supposed to be in. They entered the little round-about drive, clogged with cars, kids, and buses, and he dutifully followed the car in front of him as the line of buses began pulling out ahead of that.

  “Oh, wow. This is insane,” he said with a shake of his head to no one in particular. “How do people do this every day?” He pulled up to the edge of the curb and rolled down his window. “I’m looking for Building C?”