Margaret's Ark

Margaret's crew gathered in her front yard at seven-thirty, she estimated they still had an hour of workable daylight left.

The store in Soledad had been more responsive, mostly because she hadn’t been recognized. It didn't take long for people to figure out who she was, and subsequently her purpose for the materials. Still, she and Carl had managed to get half of Estelle's list. As they left, the manager caught her at the door and in a beseeching tone asked her not to return. Carl's face burned with a newfound rage, but he kept any comments to himself. When Margaret explained that the man's customers would not need the wood in a month, his reaction was opposite that of the manager at the first store. He simply nodded his head and said, “I know that, ma’am. But that doesn’t change what my boss thinks, and that's where the decision comes from. I'm sorry.”

Margaret wondered if she'd ever been called “ma'am” this often before the dreams. Already, her alternate plan looked to be the only way out. She explained it to Carl on the way back to Lavish, and he’d shifted uneasily in his seat. His ranting about the “lunacy” of the plan made her begin to doubt his belief in what was going to happen. She told him so, in quiet, hurt words. He fell silent, and as they'd approached the town common to call everyone together, he simply muttered, “It just seems so much like the point of no return.”

The point of no return , she thought. So be it.

Margaret explained her intentions to the group when they’d re-gathered on her front lawn. They would have to be careful not to cause the house to collapse on top of the supplies being stored in the basement – the glue, forty gallons of heavy black grease unopened since being delivered a month earlier, and the harnesses. If the worst happened, she supposed they would simply excavate it all from under the rubble and move on. Everything between this evening and the eighth of June would have to be this way. If it hadn’t been obvious before, it was now.

Her home was a lumber mine, waiting for excavation. What choice did she have left?

As she outlined her idea, no one objected. They simply stared at her in what she took as silent resignation. The cynical side of herself thought, Of course, it’s not their house we’re about to demolish.

“Estelle, what exactly do we need, measurements and everything?”

The woman adjusted her wheelchair to face the group. As she read off the list, rattling off the measurements for each piece still needed, Margaret broke people into groups, told them which room to use, and sent them in. Carl had temporarily shut off the power. Even so, Margaret sent each group in with, “And be wary of the wires. Don’t mark anything for cutting above an electrical outlet if you can help it.”

She accompanied Carl and Al up the ramp, which had become the only way into the front door since Tony Donato retrofitted the porch for Estelle. Every time she walked into her house, Margaret imagined herself boarding the ark. Each time she entered her home, there were butterflies in her stomach, a fear slowly building in her gut, reminding her how far she'd come in only a month with the complete dismantling of her life.

Katie was inside, watching with horror as people began removing photographs, dragging the china cabinet aside to expose a large section of bare wall. Margaret looked at her daughter but said nothing. She'd deliberately specified to everyone that the girls' room was off-limits. Katie was lost enough these days, and Robin had begun having her own tantrums, emulating her big sister. Neither needed to see their last refuge taken apart piece by piece.

The expression on Katie’s face when she looked at her mother cut a hole in Margaret's heart. But the girl said nothing, simply turned and ran into her room. Margaret heard her screaming once the door was shut, accompanied now and then by something hitting the walls.

She tried to put it out of her mind. Now that she was inside, she realized the amount of daylight had been misleading. Inside, a shadowy gloom pervaded every room. With the power off, it was already too dark to see any detail.

“Clear stuff away,” she repeated as she went room-to-room, “snd try to measure and draw out, but let's hold off on any cutting. It's too dark to risk any mistakes.” She sent Carl back downstairs to turn on the master power. Soon, every house light was on. Every bare wall had large rectangles drawn in marker or crayon across the wallpaper. They would cut each piece as big as possible, then trim to what was needed. The walls were plaster board. Margaret didn’t think they would work as well as straight plywood. But it might work for inside walls, especially coated with shipper’s glue. They’d have to wait and see.

People marked their cutting for the next day across wallpaper and painted walls, across the dark paneling of Vince's old den. Margaret reluctantly wandered into Katie’s room. The girl was on her bed, the lamp on its side atop the dresser, still lighted. The girl sobbed into her pillow. On the other bed, Robin sat upright, holding a stuffed dog. She stared with quiet, sad eyes at her sister.

Margaret sat on the side of the bed and reflexively ran her hand across Katie's back. Both of them tensed. She waited for the girl to explode with renewed rage against her crazy mother. Instead, Katie rolled towards her, half crawling along the bed, and crumpled in her mother's lap, still sobbing, but now crying against Margaret. She never spoke, nor looked up. But that one small gesture, and the sudden appearance of Robin on the bed beside her, hugging her mother and crying a little herself, told her that, at least among her small family, things might be all right.

26

Everyone slept in the house, scattered throughout the rooms in sleeping bags or covered with a single blanket. Except Carl, Al and Tony. Once everything had been marked, they left to stay with the ship. With the second police guard she'd added to her payroll at the common, Margaret insisted the threesome wouldn't need to stand watch. Nevertheless, they left in Al’s car. Margaret mused that the fire had burned more than the ark. Since the incident, most everyone carried something dark within them, as if they'd been personally violated. Each seemed to privately wish for someone, anyone, to try it again while they were there. These three especially, as they'd become nearly inseparable over the past days. Margaret could see the look of sadness come across Jennifer’s face when Tony stormed out with the other two. She’d be without him again tonight. Not that anyone considered doing anything more than sleep together in a house full of people, but to be able to hold someone close, and be held, was something Margaret felt envious of. That night, she, Katie and Robin all slept fitfully on Katie’s narrow twin bed. Robin had given up at some point before dawn and crawled under her own sheets.

The men returned to the house by seven the next morning. Margaret and the others were eating breakfast, mostly bagels Jennifer had gone out to buy earlier.

As soon as everyone was ready, Carl shut the power down again. That was when they'd all made an irritating discovery. None of the power tools worked. Thus began the slow process of shutting off one breaker, then the next, marking which outlets worked and which didn't on a sheet of paper Carl eventually taped to the circuit box door. Using extension chords, they were able to isolate the power to a select few outlets while shutting down the rest.

The cutting began. Margaret watched the large wall in the front room, the wall which once had held photos of Vince and the girls, of their wedding and her parents' wedding, explode in sprays of dust as David Whitman cut along the measured lines with a circular saw. As he progressed along, the large man kicked at the cord with his leg, keeping the bulk of it behind him. Margaret observed this interplay between cord and leg. Watching the actual cutting hurt too much. If she looked up, and saw the powdery gash following the progress of the blade, she felt dizzy. Eventually she left the house completely and grabbed a folding chair.

Estelle had gone out before the deconstruction began. Margaret put the chair beside hers, and laid her head on Estelle’s shoulder. She wanted to cry, wail in despair like Katie had last night. Instead, she only sighed. Estelle reached up and patted the side of her face. Neither woman said anything. They listened to the sounds of cutting and the shouts of the workers as they slowly, methodically, dismantled the Carboneaus’ home.

23

“Would you like some more water, Aunt Corinne?”

The old woman raised her right hand weakly, muttered something, which Father McMillan understood after so many visits to mean “no.” He took her hand gently and said, “Well, you just squeeze my hand if you want some, all right?”

He sat on the edge of the bed, holding her hand. Though his aunt did not normally turn her head to him during these visits, she did so now. She moved her lips, as if in conversation, but no sounds came forth save the