“I thought we were doing the living room next.”
“Well, I keep thinking it should be last, so we don’t scratch the floor dragging stuff through the house.”
“Bathroom it is. Lead on, John Henry.” Aggie shrugged at his questioning look. “It’s something my dad always says.”
As she glanced around the dingy and dilapidated bathroom, Aggie saw herself in the mirror and frowned at her reflection in the cracked and smudged glass. Luke stepped outside the door, and Aggie, thinking he’d gone, grumbled at her reflection. “I look about as drab and ratty as this bathroom.”
A moment later, Luke filled the doorway, pointing to the corner next to the toilet. “There’s room there for a shower. I don’t know why they have all those cupboards there when there is a large linen closet outside the door. I’d run a counter along that wall,” he pointed to their right, “with a nice sink and cabinet, a new mirror above it, and,” he jerked his thumb to the opposite wall, “tear out the cupboards for a shower. It’d be nice to have a shower downstairs for when the children come in covered in mud.”
“Great idea. I’ve always wondered why there wasn’t a shower in here.”
Luke offered to drive Aggie to the home improvement warehouse to choose cabinetry, shower stall, new toilet, and flooring, but she shook her head. “I think I’ll start stripping wallpaper from the library. You know what’ll match in here. Just choose something appropriate.”
With list in hand, Luke fished his keys out of his pocket and sauntered through the front door. Seconds later, Aggie heard the door slam again and peeked around the corner. There, just a few feet inside the small foyer, he stood, hands settled loosely on his hips and with something to say. She leaned against the doorjamb, waiting for him to speak, wondering if she shouldn’t just agree to go along for the ride. As she stepped from the bathroom to grab her purse and insist they go, Luke raised his eyes to meet hers.
“For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen you looking drab or ratty.” He turned as if to leave and then added almost inaudibly, “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
As his truck rolled down the street and onto the highway, Aggie jogged upstairs for another look at herself. Her latent insecure side mocked her with accusations of vanity and pride, while her practical side nodded with satisfaction. Luke was right. Her face was clean and unblemished, her hair healthy, and she was in the best physical shape of her life. So, her clothes were a bit worn and faded; why shouldn’t they be? She’d been wearing them, doing hard work, for weeks. It’d end soon and then she’d be able to wear something a little more attractive.
Sometime later, Luke found her singing as she peeled several layers of hideous flocked wallpaper from the library walls. He stood in the bathroom, sledgehammer ready, and listened to the words of the hymn before he took the first swing. “‘-- Lay your gifts at His feet; ever strive to keep sweet. Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in you.’”
* * *
Tina’s presence cut Aggie’s workload in half. While Aggie stripped wallpaper, scrubbed and primed said walls, and then drove to the store to choose paint, Tina and the children played games, made lunch, cleaned upstairs, took a walk, and finally made dinner and cleaned up the mess. With the upcoming housewarming party, Luke and Aggie felt the pressure to work long hours, and as quickly as possible, to finish as much of the house as they could. The children, Tina, Ellene, and William were roasting marshmallows over the grill and singing campfire songs by the time Aggie returned with the paint for the library.
The paint she’d chosen concerned her. Despite her original intention of going bold in the library, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. All the rich wood accents around the fireplace, the doorframes, and the beautiful pocket doors with their frosted glass demanded the foreground. She’d hesitated over a camel color but finally decided it was too bland. Her next choice, the color of pale pumpkin pulp, seemed a bit daring. With just the wrong lighting, it would scream, “this is an orange room,” and that was not the feeling Aggie wished to evoke. At last, she’d found a very pale sage named “Heathered Laurel,” but now that she was home, she doubted herself.
“Luke? Do you have a minute?” Aggie pried the lid off the paint as she called for input.
“Hmm?” He paused near the doorway, unwilling to bring dust near the paint can.
“What do you think of this color?”
“Looks good from here. Is the wall next to that window dry?”
Careful not to mark up the primer if it wasn’t, Aggie brushed the back of her hand along the wall. “Nothing comes off on my hand, it’s not tacky at all, but it’s still cool to the touch.”
He hesitated and then disappeared around the corner. “I’ll be back. Let me dust myself off.”
In the meantime, Aggie threw on every light in the room and felt the walls to find the least conspicuous and driest place to test the paint. By the time Luke returned, she’d wiped a wide swatch of paint down a short space of wall behind the door. “It was drier over here.”
They both stood back and surveyed the effect. The color wasn’t too dark, and it blended perfectly with the wood. “Well,” Luke admitted, “I wasn’t sure about it when you held it up. I mean, it looked fine and everything, but I didn’t think it was anything special. Now I’m thinking it might be the perfect color. Why don’t you go get Tina and get her opinion while I put the lid back on the can? You can’t paint tonight anyway.”
“You don’t think so?”
“The wall is still too cool. It’s better to let it cure until morning.”
“Well then,” Aggie muttered on her way out the door. “I’m glad I bought the one-coat stuff. Maybe it’ll really only take one coat.”
Tina pronounced the color perfect, Ellene nodded her own approval, and William managed not to wince when Aggie mentioned she’d almost purchased pumpkin, a fact that only Ellene seemed to notice. With an arm draped over one of Aggie’s shoulders, William pointed out a few places where the wood needed to be sanded on the walnut molding. “That one spot is pretty deep, though. I’m not sure you can fix it, and putty would ruin it.”
“I’m not sanding any of it. I’ll refinish spots that absolutely need new sealant, but since none of it is broken or missing, I’m leaving it as it is, for the most part.”
“But with a brand new room--” William’s protest seemed excessive to Luke, but he kept his opinions to himself and listened.
“This isn’t a young house. We’re fixing what needs to be fixed, but I don’t want to redo every inch of it like an older woman filling her face with collagen and overdosing on cosmetic surgery. It has lines and wrinkles. Where appropriate, I want them to show.”
Once the children were in bed, Tina, Ellene, and William tried to get Luke and Aggie to play a game or watch a movie, but neither of them was willing to stop working. Luke had the bathroom gutted. The fixtures, floor, drywall-- everything was removed, and new plumbing was in the works for the shower. Aggie, unable to work in the library until the paint dried, sanded, stripped, patched, and prepared every inch of the living room for paint.
A heated game of hearts ensued on the front porch, while the work inside continued. William and Ellene stayed until past ten o’clock, before they gave up on Aggie and Luke and went home. As much as she wanted to stay up and help, Tina was exhausted. Instead, she dragged her air mattress into the mud room and closed the door. A fan, as loud as a turbine engine, dulled the sounds of Luke’s occasional thumps and thuds, but he and Aggie kept working.
The need for another length of drainpipe halted Luke’s progress midstream. His watch mocked him with a time of one fourteen, which told him it was time to go home. To his surprise, Aggie was in the living room, half the furniture gone, and marking off different places with blue painter’s tape. “Um, Aggie?”
She jumped. “Oh! I forgot you were here.”
He walked around the squares and rectangles on her floor, trying to get a feel for what she was doing. “It’s after one. I nee
d pipe, and church is in eight hours.” She groaned, but before she could respond, he pointed to the rectangle closest to him. “Coffee table?”
“Yep.”
“I think there’s one in the attic just about that size.”
Her face lit up, erasing all signs of exhaustion. “Really? I was sure I’d have to buy one.”
“Chairs?” Luke pointed to two squares, one on each side of the fireplace.
“Mmm hmm. I’m not sure about those. I can’t put a table between them-- not with that fireplace there-- and I don’t think there’s room for a table on each side of the chairs.” She pointed to the walk space it’d clutter. “I just think the kids would be bumping them all the time.”
“Why do you need tables?”
“Something to hold reading lamps and a coffee cup or glass.”
“Well,” Luke yawned. “Let me sleep on it. I might come up with something. That’s the couch?” He pointed to a long, deep, L shaped rectangle.
“Two of them. I want to keep it versatile. I was thinking maybe I’d get a table for the corner, so I just marked it all off as one piece.”
“There’s one of those old drum tables up in the attic. The pedestal is broken, but I’ll bet we can find another pedestal easy enough. The tops are the hard parts to find.”
Aggie yawned and picked at the edge of the tape, ready to peel off another strip, but Luke took it from her. “Go to bed, Aggie. Tomorrow will be here before you’re ready for it.” He turned her shoulders and gently pushed her toward the stairs. “I’ll be back after church. I think I can get that shower in place before dinner, if I don’t run into any more problems. After that, only the floor will take any real time. You can paint the walls as soon as the shower is in place. The primer is about dry now, but I’d rather wait until morning.”
“I didn’t buy paint for it. I don’t know what color--”
“Did you get enough of that green for the library?”
“You think it’d work in the bathroom?” Aggie looked hopeful. Tired, but hopeful.
“The cabinet I bought is almost the same shade of wood. It’s a little darker, but it’ll look good, I think.”
“That’s good enough for me.” She placed one foot on the bottom stair and then turned her head. “Thanks for earlier. It’s horribly vain of me, but I needed to hear that.”
Luke started to respond, but Aggie disappeared up the stairs. As he pulled the door shut behind him, he heard the shower come on in her bathroom. All the way to his truck, the faint sound of her voice followed him. “… Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me…”
Sunday, July 28th
Luke’s cell phone rang as Aggie was starting the last wall of the library. Tina had the children outdoors and away from the living room, except for Ian, who slept soundly in his crib. Luke left the bathroom with its completed shower and went to find Aggie.
“That was my cousin Chad. He has a friend-- it’s a long story-- but anyway, she made something for Cari and Lorna, and they want to bring it out this afternoon.”
“Sure! I can’t understand why someone would make something for the girls, though. That seems a little strange.”
“When I took them to see Uncle Zeke’s puppies the other week, Willow was there, and Chad said something about her having leftover fabric, so she made something for the girls to use it up. I don’t quite get it, but I don’t always get Chad.”
“He seemed normal enough when he came out the day I got hurt.”
Luke’s brow furrowed trying to remember. “Was he here that day?”
“Not for long. He came, made the comment about gravestones, you got irritated, and dragged him inside.”
“Oh, right. I’d forgotten. I think his visit was overshadowed by your accident.” Luke nodded thoughtfully. “That was the day Cari informed me that she doesn’t ‘wike me sometimes.’”
“Doesn’t like you?” Aggie’s eyebrows narrowed, and she took another swipe at the wall with the roller.
“She was running, I told her to stop, she didn’t want to, so I made her sit on the step until I was done with Chad.”
“She told me about that.”
Nodding again, Luke smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. I forgot to follow through and see that she did. You must have gone upstairs after that.”
“So, what did you say to her when she said she doesn’t like you sometimes?” This was a new one for Aggie. She didn’t know how to handle something like that.
“Well, I think her exact words were, ‘Luke, sometimes I don’t wike you vewy much,’ so I just told her that I’d always love her very much.”
“You don’t think she should have been reprimanded for being rude?”
Luke took the roller from her and ran it over the paint tray before it dried. Handing it back to her, he shrugged. “I thought she needed a little reassurance that no matter what she did, she was loved. That child gets in trouble five times for every once that any other of the children do.”
“Tell me about it,” Aggie muttered as she rolled the paint onto the wall, taking care to overlap the edges where Luke had cut in the paint for her already. “Will the bathroom be ready for me when I’m done?”
“It’s ready now. I think I’ll grab another roller and do it while you finish that wall.”
“I can finish--”
With a paint tray and roller in hand, Luke shook his head. “No, just finish that wall and then go change. You’ll want to relax while Chad and Willow are here, and you won’t relax if you’re covered in paint and thinking about the bathroom.”
For just a brief moment, Aggie was irritated. Who did Luke think he was, deciding she didn’t have time to do something? Just as she was about to stalk down the hall and blast him, Aggie saw her paint-splattered skirt and her sweat soaked t-shirt reflected in the window. He’d overheard her complain about her appearance and then, when someone was coming to visit, took over so she could change clothes and feel more comfortable. All along the rest of the wall, she hummed an unintentional medley of half a dozen unrelated hymns, before dumping the roller in the water bucket, removing her shoes on the tarp, and tiptoeing upstairs to change.
* * *
“Libby!” Aggie rose from her wicker hammock chair and went to greet her guests. Luke was still rinsing the paint rollers by the side of the house, but with Libby there, Aggie didn’t feel quite as self-conscious.
“Aggie, you know Chad, of course, and this is his friend, Willow Finley.”
Willow stepped forward and handed a bundle of fabric tied with a string to Aggie. “It’s good to meet a friend of Chad’s.”
Luke rounded the corner, drying his hands on his jeans, and hugged his mother. “See, I told you I’d get you out here today.”
“Chad did, you ornery boy.”
“And I will take you home.” He looked around the group and asked, “Does anyone want cookies? I think Tina is baking in the kitchen.”
While Luke left to retrieve the cookies, and presumably Tina, Aggie unwrapped the bundle and unfolded the jumpers. “I can’t believe you made dresses for little girls you saw once for such a short time! They’re so cute too. Thank you!” Aggie hugged Willow impulsively.
“You’re welcome. I had fabric left over and wanted to use it up, so--”
“She hand painted that paisley fabric. Can you believe that?”
Libby and Luke, returning with the cookies, exchanged amused glances. Clueless to the silent debate raging around her regarding Chad’s true interest in Willow, Aggie went into new ecstasies over the fabric. “I can’t believe-- I mean, I see it now that I look, but it’s so perfect…”
“Except for the spot where Chad made me mess up. It’s under--” Willow showed a streak of paint under one corner of the overskirt and pretended deep offense at his goof.
Luke led Chad into the house to show him the progress on the bathroom, while the women discussed the nuances of sewing and fabric. When they returned, Willow was trying to take pictures of the girls wearing their
new dresses but finding it difficult to capture them with her 35mm camera. Everyone watched, slightly shocked, as Chad explained how to use Luke’s digital camera and assured her that she could take five hundred pictures and simply delete the ones she didn’t like. It seemed that the woman hadn’t ever seen or used a digital camera.
The screen door banged shut as Vannie brought Ian outside after his nap. Sitting him on the floor near Aggie’s feet, she nodded at Chad and Willow before sauntering around the side of the house, calling for a game of Mother-May-I. Ian started to crawl to Libby, but at the sight of Willow, crawled to her side as fast as his chubby legs would allow and tried to climb her leg.
“May I pick him up?” Anyone could see that Willow was as nervous as someone around an unfamiliar puppy.
“Sure.” Aggie and Libby spoke simultaneously.
As she fumbled, Willow sent an apologetic look in Aggie’s direction. “I don’t know how to support his head. Aren’t you supposed to support their heads?”
Assured that he could support his own head just fine, Willow played with Ian. A few minutes later, she asked, “What is his name?”
“Ian. He likes you. You seem very good with children. Do you have siblings?” Aggie knew Luke and Libby were curious about the young woman and decided to see if she could draw Willow out a bit.
“I’ve never been around children before that Sunday I got the pup.”
“She was a natural then too; wasn’t she, Luke. She handled Cari like--”
Aggie’s head whipped up, and her eyes sought Luke. “What? You didn’t tell me she was a problem.”
Willow interrupted quickly. “Oh, she wasn’t a problem. She was tempted to do wrong, and I encouraged her to reconsider. It wasn’t anything serious; was it, Luke?”
“Not at all. You were great though. Not everyone--” Luke paused and gave Chad a meaningful look. “Not everyone knows how to handle a childlike Cari.”
Ready or Not (Aggie's Inheritance) Page 36
