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CHAPTER TWENTY
“Okay, this is going to be hard to watch. But if you want that double back door here, then we have to take out this piece of the wall and framing, okay?” Georgia reassured her mother.
They stood in full demo gear. It was the last big project in the living room, the double doors that went out to the backside of the house. The doorway was only big enough for one sliding door. And the dimensions for the door they’d picked out were larger. It was a simple process that Georgia had looked up a thousand times.
It was important that they got it right, or they’d have to hire someone to fix their mistake. And it was the last project of the living room, meaning their dream lobby was almost complete. This was the day they’d been waiting for.
The panel they needed to hammer out was small, smaller than the ones on the videos they’d watched. There was so much more to be done. This should have been an easy feat.
Even with all their research, April was nervous about taking a hammer to her beloved home. She needed every bit of reassurance Georgia gave her. Reluctantly, she nodded. “Alright, let’s get it over with then.”
Though April was hesitant, Georgia was quite the opposite. She was excited to rip the place apart, even just a small piece of it. It was just like those renovation shows she watched on television when she got home from school. The demolition was always the best part. April listened to her drone on and on about all the things she was excited to tear down in worry that the house would be destroyed and they wouldn’t be able to put it back together.
Yet she still found herself here, watching her daughter swing the hammer at her wall. It came down with a crack and suddenly, they could see the innards of the walls they’d been living in.
Georgia turned with a smile on her face. She handed the hammer to April, who tried to deny it. “You’ve been the one looking forward to this part. You should get to do it,” said April.
She shrugged. “Yeah, but then I realized how good it felt and now I want you to try it. It’s so freeing. Feels like you’re the Hulk destroying a city.”
April highly doubted that smacking a hammer into the wall felt like destroying an entire city, but she was willing to give it a shot. At the very least it could be an outlet for her frustrations about life lately.
She took the hammer from Georgia and stood confidently before the wall. In her mind, on the drywall just above the hole Georgia made was a projected photo of Carl. He was smiling, just like in their family photos.
All of it was a lie, April thought.
And she remembered every lie he ever told her, every time that he said they would be together forever. Fire ran through her veins; heat built inside of her until there was nothing else but pure rage.
The hammer was lighter and easier to swing after that, smashing into the wall with enough force to create a hole even bigger than the one Georgia made. In a huff of breath from the energy, she turned and yelled, “Wow! That was really liberating.”
But the smile on her face slowly faded as she watched Georgia’s expression turn worried. She furrowed her brows. “What is it?”
Then she turned to look at the hole she just made, worried she had hit something she wasn’t supposed to. Was there water pouring onto the floor? Mold? No, it was much worse.
Through the hole she just created, they could see several wooden support beams. They were necessary to the home’s structural integrity. It was normal to see the supports through holes in the wall.
What wasn’t normal was the rot that infested the exposed beam. It wasn’t wet, but rather splitting in certain places, ready to crack and splinter if the wrong amount of pressure was put on the wall.
“Has that always been like this? It doesn’t look good,” Georgia said, nervously approaching the wall.
April admitted that it didn’t look good, but she wasn’t an expert. They would have to pay to have someone come in and take a look. “If this is structural damage, we’re screwed. That’s going to be a fortune to fix. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
She said just about every swear word she knew in her head. It was another setback, something else to add to the list. Except this was something major, worse than they’d faced so far. Which was hard for April to believe after everything they’d fixed already.
It was going to be harder than she thought. The room was almost finished, but this was going to set them back weeks of work and thousands of dollars. Especially if the problem was not just this beam, but all of them. The house was old; it was more than possible that they needed several beams replaced.
“Let’s stop for now. We’ll have to call in a professional. You go get the omelet stuff ready and I’ll check on some things.”
April didn’t want to get into details of just how costly this new discovery could be, as not to scare Georgia. But she knew they would both be disappointed if they couldn’t finish their demo session.
Unfortunately, that’s not all they would be disappointed about. As Georgia sauntered off into the kitchen and started chopping their ingredients for breakfast, April slipped into the dining room. On her laptop, she pulled up the budget she’d been working on. It showed how much they’d actually spent on the items they’d already gotten.
The supplies were the most expensive part, more expensive than she’d allotted for at the beginning of the project. Every piece of wood, doorknob, caulk had entailed more product and was more expensive than she prepared for.
They were always over budget, but April told herself they had some wiggle room. There was a personal account she’d kept all these years. It had a few thousand in it for emergencies. She would consider this a kind of emergency. And then she could later be ready to fill it back up again once the bed and breakfast was on its way or she found a temporary job.
April imagined how busy she would be trying to take care of the house and work a job. She wasn’t sure if she could even stay in the house and work at the same time. It was hard enough to keep on top of the cleaning and maintenance.
She could maybe get a loan if they needed wiggle room. At this point, if anything else came up, they would be out of money. Even if the hardware for a cabinet was a dollar more expensive. This money was hopefully going to get them their structural fix, but that’s all.
