A sharp yelp came from the back bedroom.
Catherine raced back to find Willard standing in the center of the room, water squishing out around the soles of his shoes. He was nursing a bloody finger, his good hand holding the injured one away from his body to keep his shirt from getting stained. The wound had already bled profusely enough to stain his hand red and drip onto the floor. Sodden as it was with the overflowing water, the carpet seemed to absorb the drops almost immediately, as if drinking them.
“What happened?” Catherine took one look and turned around to retrieve the first aid kit from the top shelf of the linen closet. She grabbed a dry hand towel as well-all of the larger ones were spread on the floor to draw up the water.
“I caught my finger between the bedpost and the tip of the screwdriver when I tried to loosen the back bolts on Will’s bunk, and sliced myself all to hell.” He extended his hands so Catherine could see the injury better. “I’m going to have to dismantle the whole bed to get it out of here. We’re going to have to take the carpet and the padding out as well. They’re too wet to dry back here without molding or something.”
Catherine muttered soothing non-words as she worked on his finger, wiping away the blood and cleaning the slash.
“It’s not too deep, it just bled like crazy,” Willard assured her absently while scanning the floor. Finally she finished wrapping the wound in a thick gauze bandage. Actually, the injury looked fairly serious. They might have to get Willard to the hospital, she thought.
“Come on out and sit down,” Catherine said, tugging gently at his sleeve. “You can’t do this alone, and Will’s too little to be much good at moving the heavier furniture. I’ll see if any of the neighbors can help.”
2
Even though the Huntleys had only lived on Oleander Place for a couple of months, they were well enough known and well enough liked that it didn’t take long for a crew of half a dozen men to show up and start work, with a couple of their wives to assist in the cleanup. Piece by piece, the men hauled mattresses, box springs, the wooden frame of the dresser, the low table, then bits and pieces of the bunk beds through the family room and into the garage, stacking everything neatly along the wall.
Willard tried to help, but his hand really was starting to throb and he felt dizzy every time he went into the bedroom, so finally he took Catherine’s advice-all the while glum, grudging, and frustrated-and remained in the family room. It grated on his nerves, though, whenever one of the men carried another piece through to the garage.
I should be helping them. It’s my damned house. I should be able to take care of it. I shouldn’t have to call on neighbors and then sit here like a cripple while they do all the work.
Finally, the men reported that, except for the clothing hanging in the closet and the pictures on the wall, the room was empty.
“Want us to rip up the carpet as well?” Ned Wilcox asked. “I used to work as a carpet layer to pay for college. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Let me come back and see,” Willard said. He could help with that at least.
At the threshold of the bedroom, he surveyed the damage.
The faint odor he had detected earlier in the bathroom seemed stronger now, even though most of the overflow had been sopped up in the hall and the bedroom.
He wrinkled his nose and took a deep breath. The air was damp, musty, almost dank, as if it belonged in a old earth-floored, spider-web encrusted cellar. The odor was sharp, acidic, not quite strong enough to draw attention to itself but easily noticeable if one concentrated.
The most obvious result of the spill, however, was clearly evident, now that the carpet had been removed.
Arcing from the corner diagonal to the door to midway along the closet wall, a jagged crack showed stark and black against the concrete. On the far side of the break, the floor was stone dry, the typical grey of cement, with occasional dark brown rough spots where the padding had been glued down. Nothing unusual there, except for an inch-wide fissure along the back wall, perhaps two inches in from the floorboards-the extension of the crack Willard had first noticed in the living room and traced further in the kitchen. Now it was evident that the crack continued the entire length of the back wall. If he removed the carpet in the fifth bedroom-Willard’s office-he would no doubt find the same condition along the wall there.
On the near side of the break, however, the floor was still damp, almost black, with an odd sheen that suggested that it would be slippery. It looked miasmal, unhealthy.
Willard stepped into the room.
The floor wasn’t slippery at all, he was surprised to discover, but he could tell that it would take a while longer for it to dry completely. The kids would have to camp out in the family room for a couple of days, he realized.
Wilcox and one of the other men-Willard thought his last name was Kemp-stepped into the room after him.
“That’s some crack you got,” Wilcox said.
“Kind of reminds me of the Grand Canyon,” Kemp added. “Just not quite as wide or as deep.”
Willard nodded.
Wilcox moved past Willard and Kemp, toward the far corner where the crack began. He seemed to be pacing, measuring something.
He turned and looked at each of the other corners in turn, then at Willard and Kemp.
“You’ve got a bit of a slope in here, too,” he said. “I figure a good three, four inches difference between the door over there and this corner.” He gestured at the crack. “If it weren’t for that, the water would probably have run clear across the room, under the wall, and up into the studs. Could have been a real problem.”
Willard nodded.
Wilcox pointed along the back wall. “And you got another problem there,” indicating where the wall had separated from the foundation. “Never seen anything like that before.”
Then he brushed his hands against the sides of his pants, as if getting rid of a layer of dust or something, and said, “Anything else we can do for you, Huntley?”
Willard shook his head. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to speak. Perhaps because actually seeing the fissure running across the entire width of the room had startled him, perhaps because he was already fuming- yet again-at the incredible ineptitude, or worse, of the builders. And perhaps because he understood that whatever was happening here, whatever would be needed to make this place livable for him and his family might just be beyond his ability to fix.
3
The city engineer arrived the next Wednesday.
The boys were still sleeping in the family room-they had constructed a make-shift tent of chairs, quilts, and sheets in one corner and sheets and seemed perfectly happy to stay there for the rest of their lives. Sams was especially pleased with the arrangements. He would sit just under the front flap of the tent, blanket in hand, and watch the television, giggling to himself at some secret joke.
Yap seemed equally content in his new place on the wide window sill. He spent hours, it seemed, whirling around in the exercise wheel, the small whirr becoming an integral part of the atmosphere in the room.
The carpet and padding were still laid out in the garage. Thanks to the unusual weather, the garage was overheated for this time of year, hot and stuffy. The padding seemed dry, but the carpet retained an unpleasant stickiness when touched. Perhaps a couple more days would be enough, then it could be re-laid.
Willard answered the doorbell with a sense both of anticipation and of incipient foreboding. Whatever was
