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She wanted to cry again. Her daughter had found her passion because all of this mess wasn’t a mess after all. April wondered if it wasn’t for her leaving college, for the house being a disaster, if Georgia would have ever found her calling.
“I think that’s a great idea.”
The three women stood. They grabbed hands and stared back at the disaster of a house they thought had broken them. April smiled at the potential of the place she’d been dreaming of. Sure, it wouldn’t be exactly as it was before. But it would be something special because they would all work on it.
It would become another dream. A branch of the original and a reminder that when they got beaten down, they would dust themselves off and get back up again.
April tilted her head down to her mother’s shoulder. Georgia squeezed her hand.
“I’m so proud of you,” Caroline whispered into her ear. “This place is going to be something great.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN
At least twenty people had been through the house in the last three weeks. Not only had Georgia and April been working full-time on the cleanup and renovations, but carpenters, plumbers, electricians, architects, and one insurance appraiser had worked on the house.
It wasn’t back to its full former glory, but it still had the same charm. The built-in was repaired, the original wood from several projects was able to be restored or reused in different areas.
April stared at Georgia as she swung a hammer into the wall, this time to build something instead of tearing it down. The nail slowly tapped in, leaving enough to just barely place the hanging hook.
And there, April set a framed photo. A selfie that Georgia took on the day of the hurricane, including all three of the Faith women. They’d been drenched in rain water and tears with a broken home behind them.
Their smiles were the true centerpieces to the image. It was like a light in the center of a dark tunnel. They were surrounded by destruction, the lawn chairs in the background of the yard were broken and sideways. Yet, they still smiled and posed as if they just got great news.
“I think it looks straight,” Georgia argued.
April shook her head after climbing down the step stool. “I don’t know. It still looks crooked to me. Hand me that level?”
As she went down to pick it up from the tool box, they heard a car pulling into the driveway. “I thought Grandma wasn’t supposed to get here until this weekend?”
“She’s not.”
The house had sold quickly. It was all thanks to Caroline that everything moved so fast. She was able to be up at the property taking care of all their belongings while April and Georgia worked on getting the house back to a livable condition.
It was livable, but not quite perfect. There was still a lot of work to be done. The living room was almost back to the way it was before the storm, though with different furniture. The kitchen was working, as were all the bathrooms. But some of the bedroom walls needed drywall, mudding, and some kind of flooring.
The place was a work in progress to say the least.
Georgia and April made it outside to find a truck with a familiar face behind the windshield. “Nigel!” Georgia yelled as she ran to meet him. Together they carried in the dishes he’d made for dinner.
“You’re early,” April said as they walked past her. The sun was still up, which meant that it wasn’t time for him to be arriving.
It had become a tradition that every other Wednesday Nigel would bring food for them and they’d eat together. Sometimes he helped with things around the property, sometimes he simply provided a meal and some company.
They hadn’t planned it out, per se, but all three of them knew exactly when he would arrive with a meal in his hands.
He hadn’t asked April about a date again, staying away from any subjects around seeing him outside of the dinners. It was even more shocking to April when Georgia would constantly bring up seeing him again. He somehow had a way to get out of it every single time, though he looked up at April with a look of longing in his eyes.
It became harder and harder to resist him.
“Hey, Georgia, could you run outside and gather up the tools from the front before dinner? I’m going to help Nigel set up.”
After setting down the dishes in her hand, she nodded and ran outside with the biggest smile on her face. “When does she go back to school?” Nigel asked, pulling off the lids and moving containers around to set up their meal.
“She’s headed back at the end of winter break. She starts at a new place, though. It’s a design school just a few hours away.”
It was hard for her to find a way to seamlessly transition topics like Nigel had always done so well. She felt like his words were a river, ebbing and flowing. While hers were in a pinball machine, sometimes missing the mark completely and other times hitting the obstacles with force.
“Could you… ask me again?”
