Page 34 of As Long As You'll Have Me
My normally boisterous and happy-go-lucky brother has been nothing but broody and sulking since I picked him up for our weekly breakfast with the family. He normally talks my ear off in the car as if I don’t already see him everyday at work but today, he was silent. He didn’t even mess with the radio like he normally doesuntil he finds a song he likes so he can turn it all the way up and sing so bad I want to rip my ears off.
“Nothing. God forbid I try to keep her safe as we replace the front porch. I already had to glue her hand shut at one of our Sunday meals. I don’t really want to have to take her to the hospital with a broken ankle should she trip and fall like she’s always doing.”
“Well maybe next time you should be a little nicer when you look out for her, yeah?”
He flips me the bird before moving to the opposite side of the porch to start pulling back the boards we’re going to replace. We work in silence working to strip the porch down to its studs. Thankfully with it being mid-November, it’s not blistering hot outside, which makes the manual labor more bearable. After a while, the front door swings open again and Willow is back on the porch.
“Here ya go, boys. Eat up.” She moves towards me first and hands me a plate full of food she and Ivy cooked up before we got here. Turning on her heels, she walks towards the other side of the porch and drops Carter’s plate down on the railing. When it lands, some of the food jumps up from the impact and falls to the ground. She doesn’t say anything before spinning around and making a beeline for the front door.
“Thank you, Willow,” Carter calls out, before dropping the volume of his voice. “And I’m sorry for being a jerk.”
She pauses for a moment and casts a glance toward him over her shoulder. They exchange a look that seems to hold more meaning than I understand and then she’s gone, disappearing inside again. Carter flits his eyes back to me, sensing my confusion. He spins the baseball hat he’s wearing so the bill of it covers his face and goes back to working on the porch without another word.
What the hell is going on with them today?
Once we’ve stripped the porch of the old wood that’s rotting away, we move onto cutting the new boards to size. Being more crafty than I, Carter uses a table saw to cut them to size as I stand back and let him work. He’s mid-cut when a police cruiser rolls up the driveway and a fully uniformed douchebag steps out.
“Ahh, look at this, Ivy’s put you two to work on your day off I see,” Coop says, slamming the door behind him. He steps towards the backdoor and opens it, letting Lola out. She sits and waits for him to release her and when he does, she takes off towards the house, knowing good and well who’s inside. I jump up the first few steps of the porch and open the door to let her in and it isn’t long until I hear Ivy and Willow baby talking to her from the kitchen.
“She’s not making us do anything; we offered,” Carter explains, lifting his safety glasses from his eyes. “You wanna help?”
“I would but I got called in this morning. I’m only stopping by to see my sister and say hi to Ivy. Maybe steal some bacon while I’m at it.” Coop struts across the front yard for the porch and pulls me into a hug when he passes.
“How many more boards you need to cut?” I ask Carter once Coop steps inside. The saw is already running and when the whining sound of it spinning stops, he looks at me.
“That’s the last one. Come on, let’s get these up so we can work on replacing the steps.”
Helping him carry the planks of wood, we work together to put them in place on the porch. Using a tool he must have brought over with the lumber, he nails each one into place in a matter of seconds. His craftsmanship always surprises me when he brings it out. For a guy who likes towatch old cartoons and dumps half a container of maple syrup on his waffles, it always shocks me to see this side of him. The guy could build almost anything you ask him to even though you’d have no idea he could by talking to him.
“Where are you looking at property?” I ask him after we get one side of the porch done.
“Who’s looking at property?” Coop’s voice comes from above us. We didn’t hear him come out over the sound of the nail gun but he’s now standing over us, looking down and eating a plate full of scrambled eggs and bacon.
“Carter is.”
“You are?” he asks through a mouth full of food.
“Only if I get done with this in time, I am,” Carter groans, nailing another board into place. He doesn’t even flinch as thepop, pop, popof the machine goes off.
“Where?” Coop asks, moving from the top of the porch to a lawn chair that’s been sitting in the front yard since we were in high school.
“Somewhere along the river, maybe on an inlet. Near water if I can find something I can afford,” Carter explains. We’ve gotten the boards up on the side and he’s taken it upon himself to start ripping out the steps so we can rebuild them.
I chuckle. “On the water? Do you know how expensive that is? I know how much you make, how are you going to be able to afford that?”
Sighing, he stands up and wipes his forehead with the back of his hand. “I don’t plan on buying new. I’m looking on the outskirts of the city, off the beaten path.”
“The only thing you’ll find out there are homes that are falling down,” Coop points out, his voice full of skepticism.
“That’s right,” Carter replies curtly. “I’m going to fix it up onmy own.”
“You’re going to build your own house?” I ask, unable to hide my surprise.
“No, I’m going tofix upmy own house,” he corrects. “I’m looking at older homes that have been left or forgotten and I’m going to do what I can to remodel it into a house I can live in.”
I cast a look towards Coop who shrugs.
“I think that’s great man, let me know if I can help in any way,” he praises, lifting a piece of bacon towards Carter before taking a bite out of it.
