“How’s it going?” Ali asked.
Sister Anselm shook her head. “Naturally there’s a problem with the foundation. I suspected as much since we’d had so much cracking at one end of the house. They’re bringing in a soil engineer to find a way to shore up the foundation. That has to happen before any other repairs can be undertaken.”
Leland turned up just then with a rosewood tray that contained two wineglasses and an already opened bottle of the Grand Cru he had selected. A glance at the label told Ali it was one of the rarer bottles that had come from her philandering second husband’s extensive wine collection. Because her divorce from Paul Grayson hadn’t been finalized at the time of his death, she had inherited the wine collection along with everything else. She never sipped any of what she thought of as “Fang’s wine” without remembering that it was, in a very real way, the spoils of war.
Leland poured two glasses and handed them out. Ali raised hers first. “Here’s to remodeling!”
Sister Anselm laughed. “I had a long talk with the electrician today. He’s a young guy who had never before seen what they call ‘knob and tube’ electrical wiring. Now that the place is stripped down to studs, it’s all painfully visible. From the looks of it, the wiring situation constituted a very real fire hazard. The electrician told me it’s a miracle we weren’t all burned to death in our sleep.”
“How old is St. Bernadette’s again?” Ali asked.
“It was built in 1910,” Sister Anselm explained. “They remodeled it once in the twenties. That’s when they installed both electricity and running water. Very little has been done since, other than necessary repairs, painting, and the occasional plasterwork. For years Sister Evangeline, the cook, kept a list on the fridge saying what appliances could and couldn’t run at the same time. For instance, starting the microwave at the same time the coffeepot was going was a definite no-no. Ditto the toaster. Making toast at the same time as anything else was turned on meant we’d blow a fuse for sure. And since there was seldom more than one or two plug-ins in every room, we had little multi-outlet extension cords everywhere.”
“Fire hazard indeed,” Ali observed. She had been deeply involved in the remodel of this house, so she had some idea of the complex issues involved. Even though hers was half the age of the convent, upgrading and redesigning the electrical service had been a costly but important process.
“By the way,” Sister Anselm added, “I called Bishop Gillespie earlier this afternoon to tell him about the problem with the foundation. My understanding is that rectifying the situation will be expensive and raise the cost of the remodel considerably. I know B. agreed to do this for us, but I’m not sure his generosity will stretch that far. The bishop said the two of them would discuss it.”
“Don’t worry,” Ali said. “After what you did for all of us in Texas? I can promise you that there’s enough give in the remodeling budget to cover whatever is needed. If B. can’t pony it up, I certainly can.”
Leland appeared in the doorway. “Dinner is served,” he announced.
Taking their wineglasses with them, the two women followed him into the dining room. Once they were seated, he served generous helpings of thick stew into their dishes. Then, setting the soup tureen down on the sideboard, he brought a platter heaped with slabs of corn bread still steaming from the oven.
After serving, Leland coaxed Bella into the kitchen with him. The two women ate a companionable meal while falling snowflakes drifted past the dining room window. They spent most of the time comparing the hazards of remodeling projects and some of it discussing Ali’s scholarship responsibilities.
They finished eating a little past eight. When Ali invited her guest back into the library, Sister Anselm declined. “In the convent, we go to bed with the birds and rise with the chickens. If you don’t mind, I’ll take a rain check.”
While Leland cleaned up, Ali took the last of her wine and returned to the library with her dog, her comfy chair, her fireplace, and her book.
Yes, remodeling took time, money, and effort, but from where she was sitting right now, it was definitely worth it. She hoped that when the nuns from St. Bernadette’s returned home from Payson to their newly rehabbed digs, they’d be able to say the same.
7
As the pickup moved steadily southward, they began to drive through flurries of snow. It was starting to stick on the sides of the road but not on the pavement itself. Enid knew that her lightweight jacket would be no match for the weather once she left the crowded warmth of the pickup. And what would happen when she did?
Just thinking of it was enough to fill her heart with dread. What should Enid do? What if she spoke up and asked the man to stop and let her out right now? What if she went back to The Encampment on her own before The Family had a chance to send someone out searching for her? Maybe she’d be able to beg Gordon’s forgiveness. If she was lucky, perhaps he’d let her off with nothing worse than a beating. Then again . . .
Eventually the strain of the day was too much for her. Not intending to, she nodded off, allowing her head to loll over onto the Navajo woman’s broad shoulder. She awakened and straightened up, seemingly much later, when the pickup began to slow.
“We’re almost there,” the woman said as Enid sat up and rubbed her eyes. “Our turnoff is coming up in a mile or two. Do you have someone who will come get you?”
“I’ll be all right,” Enid said.
Shaking her head, the woman twisted around and retrieved a blanket from the narrow space behind the seat. “It’s cold out there,” she said. “You’ll need something besides that jacket to keep you warm.”
Enid fingered the rough wool. In the pale light from the dashboard, she glimpsed the colorful hues and complex designs and recognized them for what they were. She had seen Navajo rugs and blankets before. There was a special counter inside the general store where tourists could buy them, cheerfully paying amounts of money that seemed, to Enid, to be princely sums.
“I can’t take this,” Enid protested.
“You have to,” the woman insisted. Her voice was gentler than Aunt Edith’s, but it brooked no nonsense.
“But I don’t have any money,” Enid objected.
“What you have is a need for a blanket,” the woman said firmly. “I can always weave another. Please take it.”
Reluctantly, Enid accepted. “Thank you,” she said.
The pickup pulled off onto the dirt shoulder and came to a slow stop. The snow had let up, although a few flakes still skittered here and there. They had stopped at a junction of sorts, under a single streetlight and next to a flock of mailboxes. On either side of the paved highway dirt roads led off to the east and west and disappeared into the distance. Directly across the road was a lonely gas station.
The woman pointed toward the road that went off to the right. “Our daughter’s RV park is that way,” she said.
Nodding, Enid fumbled for the door handle.
“Are you sure we can’t call someone to come for you?” the woman asked as Enid climbed out.
“No,” she said, stepping onto a dirt shoulder that was partially covered by a thin coating of snow. “Someone will give me a ride.”
She looked back the way they had come. Far in the distance she spotted a pinprick of light, which meant that another vehicle was coming this way. As the wind bit through her jacket, she wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and was amazed at how well the tightly woven wool shielded her from the cold.
She stood for a moment longer, holding the door open. “Thank you for the ride,” she said, “and for the blanket, too.”
Moving to reclaim her part of the bench seat, the woman nodded. “You’re welcome,” she said. “Take care.”