Page 10 of Up In Smoke

Moving into one corner, Luke got to work. He pulled out his flashlight and peered behind what drywall remained. It looked okay, he thought, but he’d need a better view. He started reaching for his crowbar when a sound came from behind him.

The cracking of plaster had him turning and he was surprised to see that Ivy already had her own crowbar out and was making short work of what few pieces remained on the wall in front of her. She'd clearly had the same thought as him, but Luke held his tongue.

In a few moments, they’d littered the middle of the floor with pieces of drywall until all the studs were bare.

“Where did the furniture go?” he asked.

“Jo and I rented a little trailer and hauled it to the dump.” She sighed again. “Then I had to spend money on these clothes because Jo’s jeans cost more than my weekly salary.”

He almost laughed but understood about Jo. His fellow firefighter didn’t need the paycheck, but she’d proven herself time and time again.

Ivy was still talking, and he found himself paying rapt attention. “The good news though is the hall closet was closed. So, while I need to wash every piece of linen in there, it all survived. I have to wash every piece of fabric. Jo's laundry is getting a workout.”

Luke smiled. No one had quite known what to make of Jo Huston when she'd first arrived on A-shift. The brusque, straightforward firefighter with the trust fund had seemed a highly unlikely friend for the prim and proper town librarian, but the two had seemed inseparable since the day Jo arrived. Now, Luke was glad that Ivy had a warm home and a welcoming friend with room to spare.

As he cataloged all the ways he could help Ivy, she turned away and began testing the studs in the walls. In the corner, they were sturdy, still yellow wood, protected by the drywall that had remained, but the fourth was blackened, the fire having alligatored the surface. Ivy deemed it unsuitable.

With a steady gloved hand, she went after it until she had it expertly removed. Then she proceeded to pull out the next three.

Just as Luke was reaching out to stop her, she turned away. Lifting the wood pieces she’d been chucking onto the ruined flooring, she hefted them against her hip and carted them into the front yard, where she unceremoniously dropped them.

He was almost too stunned to do anything. But he quickly got himself together and grabbed the remainders of what had been heaped on the floor and followed her out.

Just as he was getting ready to open his mouth, she pulled a two by six from the palette of lumber she’d had delivered for the job. Hefting it up, she sighted it to check it was straight before carrying it to the small workshop they’d set up.

Moving into place, she quickly measured it with her too-new tape, and flipped the switch on the saw. He'd managed to hold off judgment until that moment, but Ivy Dean, sweater twinset wearing librarian, was handling lumber like she’d done more than just read about it. She’d known not to remove too many studs in one location, and that she should replace them as she went. He watched as she handled a vice clamp, expertly creating a jig that would make all the boards a uniform length.

“You know what you're doing, don't you?”

With her safety glasses in place, her hands cleanly away from the moving blade, she turned the noisy saw off and looked up at him. “Did you think I wouldn't?”

He shrugged, not wanting to admit he’d not expected it at all. “I didn't think the librarian would have mad carpentry skills.”

She only laughed and said, “You have no idea how many barns I've raised.”

It was such an odd phrase. One that he wouldn't use, despite the fact that he'd replaced countless numbers of walls and built far too many decks to remember.

“When were you raising barns?” And why did no one know about this?

But she brushed him off as though she hadn’t even said that. “Help me line this first one up?”

Luke followed her back inside, her expertise and easy handling of the lumber told him this wasn’t her first wall.So why wouldn’t she talk about it?

Chapter Nine

“Mama, where’s Tiago?” Luke watched as the ash on her cigarette grew to a horrifying length. When he'd been a kid, her ability to grow ash and never drop it was a skill he admired. Now it petrified him.

Whoever was following his childhood path and lighting it on fire wouldn't need to set his mother's home ablaze. She would do it herself, eventually. Taking another drag on the cigarette, she eyeballed him as if to say that was the stupidest question she'd ever heard. “I don't know where Tiago is. He's an adult.”

Luke fought the urge to throw his head back and laugh. Tiago had never been an adult. He was merely older these days. “Is he in prison, Mama?”

“I don't think so.”

Didn’t that just say it all? His mother loved her four sons. She’d shown it by working herself to the bone and making sure they had what they needed. But what she’d missed was being there for them. Not her fault, Luke knew, but it had manifested in different ways in all four of them.

Most of those ways had not been good. Though Luke was confident she still loved them all, she was tired, so tired that she didn't even know if her oldest was in prison or not.

“All right,” he said. “Thank you, Mama.”

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