Page 60 of A Light in the Dark
“We’ll take the discount plus silk,” his father replied without even a hint of hesitation. “Thank you for resolving that matter promptly.”
“You’re welcome.” I gave Joel my undivided attention. “You can go into your SUV, lock yourself in, and scream your frustration. Please don’t disturb the moths again. They’re busy having a good time right now.”
“I’ll refrain from screaming for now, but the first time I get you playing a computer game against me, I am going to destroy you at it.”
I laughed at his version of revenge. “Okay. I can live with the burden of being a good sport while you destroy me if it makes you feel better. Is everyone happy with the arrangement?”
“We should bring out some more yarn, maybe in pinks and purples. She’s earned it with that,” Joel’s mother said, and without waiting for his father to reply, she headed for the house.
“Are you going to have room in the SUV for everything?”
“It’ll be questionable, but we’ll manage. If not, I’ll just make another trip in a week or two. I’m going to have to build the actual contract and do the evaluation for this place. Such a pain in my ass, Dad.”
“You’ll get over it eventually. I don’t know why you wouldn’t just accept the damned cash.”
“He’s stubborn, grateful for being alive, and loves you,” I replied. “As such, he doesn’t want to accept cash because he wants to be the one showeringyouwith cash. He’ll get over it. Just remind him you have a grill and will fire it up on demand.”
“Joel, I have a grill, and I’m willing to use it.”
“I’ll be expecting some damned good steak and other food. And some yarn I can play with.”
“You have a stash in your bedroom. Play with that.”
“But I want new yarn.”
Joel’s mother laughed, stopping in the doorway and turning to face us. “I’ll get him enough to make himself a scarf. Maybe that’ll keep him quiet for ten minutes.”
“It’s a long shot, but I’m willing to try it,” Joel’s father said, and I grinned at the despair in his tone. “I don’t know why everyone in town wants a son. Sons are spoiled, annoying, and cause trouble.”
“The girls are just as bad, but they get away with it because they’re cuter,” Joel’s mother countered. “Just be grateful we identified ours was going to be trouble from birth. We might have been stuck with more than just one.”
Love showeditself in many ways, and Joel dragged his heels about leaving town. I reminded him we could dodge stopping in my hometown if we filled up in his town and targeted a different gas station closer to Stonecreek. As I dodged visiting, I couldn’t blame him for his ready acceptance of the idea. The roses in the trailer convinced him we needed to leave his family behind and return to the city.
After we safely passed where I’d been born, Joel heaved a rather pained sigh. “I’m sorry. I get stubborn once I go home. And I start acting my shoe size rather than my actual age.”
As Sampson Sigils had been in business for over fifty years before I’d moved into town, I assumed the company’s owner was at least in his sixties, which indicated his parents were older still. At Joel’s production of a hundred pounds of silk a year, I could understand how Yolana had so many goods available, which she’d spun anddyed herself.
The Fountain of Youth truly was being a luna moth. The reality I would be a memory before he reached his middle age cast gloom over the already dreary day, although we got lucky and the clouds opted to maintain a drizzle rather than actual rain.
“You have to have a hard job, especially around the flooding season. What if the shoring on one of your properties failed during the floods?” I regarded him with wide eyes. “None failed, did they?”
“No, we didn’t have any failed shorings this year. The few times we’ve had shorings fail, it’s been for things outside of our control or the homeowner invalidated the shorings through making modifications without having us come and fix the foundations. And we have runes in place for that; if a shoring fails, we can tell. The sigils on the foundations are linked to a board we monitor in our headquarters. When we see the sigil fade or show signs of damage, we contact the homeowner and implement some clauses in our contract. We offer immediate repair of the sigil as long as they tell us exactly what they did to invalidate the sigil and pay the at-cost wages and supplies for the repair. That’s roughly five thousand per foundation wall.”
“Compared to the full cost of shoring, that’s really not bad.”
“It’s really not, and we only charge when they invalidate the sigil. It’s a lot of work to restore the shoring. A few years back, someone refused to pay out, so we cancelled the contract and refused to refund as they had done substantial alterations to their foundation. We photograph the foundations before we do the work, and if we do interior work, we photograph the inside.”
I remembered them taking pictures of the exterior of my home during the work. “How bad is the repair season for you?”
“It’s busy. I’d say a quarter of our properties need to have some form of maintenance work done on them. Yours would have been on the maintenance list this year for precautionary examination outside of our usual checks, but we adjusted the schedule after you decided to take advantage of my suggestion to have additional work done. The front foundation wall took a beating. I suspect it’s where your front step connects to the foundation, since that’s touchier work. Most don’t have that leading step. I’ll be seeing if we can offer that leading step to more of our customers after seeing how critical it had been rescuing Gabriella. Do you mind if I make off with your rescue rig design? I’ll pay for the design if we can install it on our covered properties. You’ve proven that setup saves lives.”
“You can give me some extra vomit and shifter byproduct as compensation, but I don’t need to be paid for the design. I’d give it to the entire city for free if I could.”
“Until we find out why there are so many refugees dying like they are, I’m afraid if youdidstart sharing your rescue rig, you might draw the wrong attention. I don’t want you to end up being a victim, too.”
“Wait. Someone might target me just for helping to teach others how to rescue people out of the floods?”
“Yes, it’s possible.”
