Dead Living (Spirit Caller Book 5) (6 page)

“Don’t you ever speak to me like that! I am still your father.”

Manny stood up. He rested his hands on the table. “Here’s a clue, Dad. If you want me to treat you like my father, start acting like it. This is my house, Dad. Mine. Not yours. You can’t come here and treat Mom like she’s your slave.”

“Manny! Manny, sit down,” Irene urged.

“No, Mom. I’ve had enough of him acting like this. You should be allowed to be friends with whoever you want to be friends with.” Manny jabbed a finger at me. “And that includes Rachel.”

“Manny, leave it,” Irene begged. “Just leave it be.”

David pushed his chair back and got to his feet, a swift movement that slopped my water on the tablecloth. “I’m not controlling your mother. I’m defending her!”

“How, Dad? How is telling her who she is allowed to be defending her?”

Irene pulled on David’s sweater sleeve. “Stop it.”

David ignored her. Manny and David shouted at each other about how David was the head of the household. I didn’t quite follow the argument, but apparently he was trying to convey how that meant he was the spiritual head,
something something
I’m a sinner sent to lead them astray
something something
.

Then Manny lost his shit and screamed about how David wasn’t always this religious and that’s what caused everyone to stop getting along. He accused David of being a control freak
something something
lots of religious words I didn’t quite understand
something something
.

“Enough, you two!” Connie shouted over both of them.

“Don’t tell me how to speak to my own son,” David snarled.

“Don’t talk to her like that, Dad,” Manny said, in pretty much the same tone as his father’s, which was very creepy.

Irene slammed her fist on the table. Everyone shut up and stared at her. “Sit down.”

Everyone sat.

“Both of you are behaving like children,” Irene said in a calm, measured voice.

“Mom…” Manny began.

“Stop right this minute, Emmanuel.”

Manny shut the hell the up.

“Irene, let’s go,” David said.

“We aren’t going anywhere,” Irene said. “You are going to sit down and we are all going to act like grownups. Rachel, please pass me the mustard pickles.”

I passed her the pickles, jaw firmly locked in place. I’d never heard Irene O’Toole raise her voice to her husband. What’s more, I’d never seen David back down to anyone, let alone his wife.

David and Irene left shortly after the chocolate cake was served, with Irene using a headache as an excuse. When the door shut behind them, I said, “Please tell me there is vodka somewhere in this apartment.”

Jeremy and I ended up calling a cab around midnight.

Chapter 5

Build For Manual Labour

When Mrs. Saunders makes a decision, it’s made and there is no time for dithering about. The next month was a blur of activity around Wisemen’s Cove. It took an hour of being on hold with the provincial government for Amy to get the grant’s approval code to go ahead with the renovation. Approval codes in hand, everyone pitched in to help Amy and her “old man” build the extension on their house, where Mrs. Saunders and Millie would spend their remaining days.

When I lived in Edmonton, I’d wanted a couple of ceiling fans installed in my condo. I waited six months for an electrician, who never showed up for his appointment. I had to hire some guy from Home Depot to do it, and that still over a month before the fan guy could come. And he tracked mud all over my white carpets.

Here? It took longer to get the building inspector to show up than it did to complete the various stages of construction. I have never met so many people who knew how to build. Like, okay, I can cut a 2x4 as well as the next girl, but I'm talking being able to look at an existing house and all know exactly how to build an extension and just get to work. With nothing more than a drawing on the back of a paper napkin!

I was in charge of hauling lumber and supplies from Deer Lake. I rarely made the trip alone. Sometimes Jeremy or Manny came, while other times Connie or Amy kept me company on the long drive down and back. Mrs. Saunders even came once and we stopped at the Irving Big Spot so that she could order liver and fried onions, gravy, ketchup, fried mushrooms, French fries, chocolate cake, and a chocolate milkshake.

Now, setting aside her doctor would murder me if he knew I was letting her eat that (she only had a few bites and sips of each), there were other restaurants in the area that served the exact same meal. But, nope, we had to go to the Irving gas station truck spot restaurant and by God and the sweet baby Jesus we were going to have liver and onions and half of the rest of the menu. We’d pack it all up and bring it back home, so that she could spend a week eating the leftovers.

And I was going to keep my mouth shut like a good little girl because Mrs. Saunders has earned the right to eat whatever the hell she wants.

We moved Millie into Amy's first. Millie didn’t have much in the way of stuff, having sold or given away everything when she moved into the seniors’ home. Still, she had some personal items and moving her from one town to another to live with a stranger was becoming stressful for her, so I’d enlisted one of her grandchildren from Stephenville.

Now, for the record, I say I enlisted him. Dema says I used “shaming tactics” and Jeremy said my mother would have been proud of the guilt trip I pulled. Well, I'm so very sorry, but if your elderly grandmother is living in a senior’s home where no one ever visits her and is moving in with strangers who care more about her then you do, well, you deserve to feel guilty.

So  there.

Sweet mercy of my Ancestors, I really am turning into my mother.

Moving Mrs. Saunders was an entirely different matter, however. She had over seventy years of stuff accumulated and there was no way all of that was going to move to Amy’s. For the time being, we only packed the stuff she absolutely needed and would go through everything later.

The
For Sale
sign went up on her front lawn. The figure was heartbreakingly low, but property just wasn’t worth anything here in the middle of nowhere. The realtor told me it was a good price for the area and the house would eventually sell. She reminded me I was used to big city prices, and Mrs. Saunders wasn't being ripped off. She was probably right. My condo in Edmonton sold for a small fortune, but that was Alberta during the boom. This place was down the road from the middle of nowhere.

Still, it broke me to see that sign go up. I watched the realtor’s son hammer the wooden post into the ground, the terrifying low price written in black marker at the bottom. I tugged my jacket tighter against the wind and the rain, and tried giving the young man a smile, but my heart wasn’t in it. He gave me a nod before heading back into his truck, off to his next task.

I sobbed before his truck was even out of sight. How lonely was I going to be, now that she wasn’t next door? Why did people have to get old?

Jeremy eventually came out with an umbrella to shield me from the wind. He put his arm around me and whispered it was all for the best. Blah blah blah. I knew that already. It didn’t make the change sting less.

In the privacy of our embrace, I allowed myself to say the words that had been haunting me the entire time. “This means I’m closer to losing her than I’d like to admit.”

“Oh, honey,” he said and help me tighter. “I know she means a lot to you, but you haven’t lost her yet. Let’s make sure we visit her as often as we can, okay?”

“I'm not ready to lose her.” I wept into his chest.

“She's not gone yet.”

I never let Mrs. Saunders see me sad. That was my burden, not hers. Once the building supplies were gathered, I was put in charge of the odds and sods shopping the next time Jeremy had to go to Corner Brook. Millie gave me a little money, as did Mrs. Saunders. Mrs. Saunders's husband had had a good job, leaving her a nice pension. Millie only lived off government pensions, so Mrs. Saunders
and
Amy slipped me even more on the sly, on the strict promise I wouldn't tell anyone.

And most of my neighbours slipped me a twenty and told me the same thing.

And most of Amy’s neighbours did the same.

Now, compared to the rest of the world, Canada really does have some of the best social safety net programs around. It’s also true that many single, elderly women live well below the poverty line. So I might have also accidently slipped a couple of my own fifties into the roll of cash I’d been given to do the shopping with. And Irene and Amanda might have done the same. And Connie, too.

And Jeremy might have made me take his credit card, just in case.

It should come as no great surprise there was over two hundred dollars left by the time all of this slipping of extra money was done. I’d gotten the ladies an electric kettle, a small microwave, and a very swanky toaster oven. I got them a mini-fridge and a little wooden set to store all of their small appliances. I’d found Millie a cozy arm chair for her to relax in during Wheel of Fortune. Mrs. Saunders, of course, refused to part with her favourite chair, but I did pick her up a new stool and a couple of fuzzy new slippers.

The
oohs
and
ahhs
over the great bargains I’d clearly found got the two old ladies quite worked up. Never mind my supernatural abilities; bargain hunting is clearly my true talent.

The extension was finished soon enough. That replaced a lot of my sadness when I saw the excitement on Mrs. Saunders’s and Millie’s faces. No word of a lie, it was bigger than my first two university apartments put together!

Each had her own tiny bedroom and closet, plus there was a small sitting room with their arm chairs, a television and a radio. There was even enough room for the mini kitchenette I’d picked up; I’d assumed it would be in the hallway outside of their little area.

Amy and Irene cooked up a huge meal and we spent most of the day eating and laughing, enjoying the old ladies’ excitement.

When Jeremy and I headed back home, I frowned at the For Sale sign. The realtor told me it could take a full year before the house sold, so not to panic about clearing it out. She was hoping someone might decide to turn it into a bed and breakfast, or maybe apartments.

I was thinking it could work as a short-term rental. A cozy granny house with stocked cupboards. Maybe install a jet tub in the upstairs bathroom. Keep the old wood stove, for nostalgia, but update everything for just oil and electric heat, since the mainlanders wouldn’t have a clue how to use the wood stove.

The toilets needed replacing, and the kitchen could use a redo, but all of the windows and frames had been replaced ten years ago and were still holding up well. She could use new storm doors and a good coat of paint.

“What are you thinking about?” Jeremy asked when he put the car in park.

I pulled my eyes from the house and smiled at him. “Oh, nothing really.”

We got out of the car and Jeremy waited for me. He put his arm around me and tugged me into him. I bumped my hip up against him, once by accident, and once on purpose. He stumbled a little, but caught himself.

“You’re going to pay for that later, missy,” he said, reaching his long arm up to squeeze my breast.

“Jeremy! We’re outside!” I admonished.

That just made him grin, though it faded when he glanced over his shoulder. “It’s going to be strange living here without her. Will you be okay?”

I nodded. “I’m going to dig up her bleeding hearts tomorrow and transplant them over on Amy’s. Then I’ll make sure to drop by and visit every other day, for sure, especially if I’m not working.”

He smiled at me as we walked inside. He rummaged in the fridge and pulled out an Orange Crush for himself, and a Diet Crush Cream Soda for me. Then, he pulled out sandwich meat, cheese, mayo, mustard, butter, lettuce, and a plastic container with all of the various partially-cut sandwich extras he liked.

“How can you be hungry? We just ate a huge meal at Amy’s!”

“That was two hours ago,” he said firmly. He began slicing the leftover tomato and avocado, carefully organizing his veggies on the multigrain bread. “Sure you don’t want one?”

“I’m still full.”

“Rachel, are you going to go back to work full time, now that I’m better?”

I didn't think he meant as accusingly as it sounded, but it still smarted my pride. “I like being on call for emergencies, and working part-time to cover sickness and that. But...I can't do social work full time anymore. It's too hard on me. I...is that okay?”

Sandwich constructed, he began packing everything back into the fridge. “I make enough money for both of us. We'll be fine.”

“I don't expect you to support me. I'll figure something out.” I shrugged. “I still have a lot in my savings account, from the house sale. I have my RRSP, if things got really horrible. And I do sell my art stuff, and I work sometimes…”

“Rachel, it’s fine. I was just asking.” He smirked before taking a bite of sandwich. “We are getting married. We're allowed to share a bank account.”

“Oh, god, no. That's where arguments lay.” I sucked in a breath and said, “We should probably work all of that stuff out first, huh. Before we make any hasty decisions.”

More bites. He was making me hungry now. “We can talk about all of the marriage rules during our romantic weekend getaway that we leave for the day after tomorrow.”

“Our what?”

Jeremy grinned. “I have the weekend off and I’ve decided to go ahead with my plan for how I was going to propose to you. I love you and all, but asking you to marry me while leaning against a dirty toilet wasn’t really hitting the mark for me.”

“It was perfect,” I whispered. “And it wasn’t that dirty.”

He kissed the top of my head. “I love you. And the toilet is still filthy.”

“You got two hands,” I said sullenly. “You should learn to use them.”