Page 12 of Shake the Habit

“You could wait in the house,” he suggested, sounding doubtful.

“No, I would like to see the scope of work,” I answered, which made it sound as if I really did have a purpose here besides seeing him again. I was here for Sir, since it was good for the dog to visit a friend and maybe get a chance to run around the property that Caleb had mentioned. My pet’s welfare was at the forefront of my mind.

“You don’t have boots?” Caleb asked.

“I never worry about mud,” I said grandly. I never came out to jobsites with Marc, either, but here we were and I could make the best of it.

“Uh, ok,” he said, even more doubtful. He left me at the side of the truck to go talk to my cousin. Then I trailed behind them as they discussed the project, restoring a barn that wasn’t really so old. Caleb’s mom had built it but had let it fall into disrepair and he was hoping that parts of it could be salvaged, or maybe the whole thing. Marc walked around and I was proud to see how professionally and competently he inspected the siding, thefoundation, the doors, and everything else about the building. There was plenty for Sir to sniff and examine, his favorite activity, and the two of us walked further into the dim interior while they talked.

Then, suddenly, the dog picked up his head and made a sound I’d never heard from him before: a low-pitched, menacing growl. It rose out of his big chest as he froze, his body motionless and rigid, and he watched something in the shadows of what might have been an old animal pen.

“Sir, come here!” I said and for once, he listened. He backed up and stood in front of me, still making that deep hum and still alert.

“Kayleigh?”

I walked quickly toward Marc’s voice, and Sir trotted along, totally relaxed. “What got into you?” I asked him. I had been wishing that he could communicate a little better, since I talked to him a lot and was interested in what he might have replied. As per usual, he had nothing to say now, but his tail was back to wagging as we joined Caleb and my cousin. He stayed close to me, though, and his fluffy beard brushed against my leg.

“We’re going to take a look at the house while we’re here,” Marc said. “That might be a project down the road.” He met my eyes and his own widened with significance. This type of project would be a wonderful, amazing thing for Coops Creek Construction, much larger than the jobs that my cousin usually got hired for. It was big enough that I started to get nervous, actually, because Marc didn’t have much of a regular crew justyet. We did, however, have an amazing resource: a million and two McCourts. Between the various members of our family, most construction trades were represented, and they were all willing to give him a hand when he needed one (just as he would have—and had—stepped up for them).

They waited for me to lead the way, which I did carefully since the puddles weren’t limited to the exterior. This barn was plenty wet due to some obvious issues with the roof, walls, and maybe something coming up from the ground…I didn’t want to think about septic. And now it was really raining outside, not just the mist from earlier. But I was bound and determined to look around the house, so I said that no, of course I wasn’t bothered by the Noah’s ark amount of water on the ground. I held my chest and ran toward the porch, accompanied by Sir, and he thought it was a great game. He splashed through puddles and then, as we reached the front steps, he jumped on me for even more fun.

I went right down.

“Hell!” I heard Caleb say, and he helped me out of the puddle I’d landed in. “Did he hurt you?”

“Not much,” I said.

“Kayleigh’s tough. Remember when I hit you with the baseball bat?” Marc reminisced. “By mistake,” he told Caleb, who’d turned to stare at him. “She walked in the way of my backswing.”

“I’m ok,” I announced, and tried to brush myself off. I was soaked, though, and the mud on my front was going nowhere.

“Come on up on the porch,” Caleb told us, and we all followed. He spoke very sternly to Sir, who seemed ashamed, and the dog stood quietly for a wipe-down with a towel that Caleb brought out. He’d handed one to me, too, but there wasn’t much I could do. At least I stopped the dripping so that I wouldn’t make a mess on his floors.

“You having problems with the heat?” Marc asked when the three of us went inside.

“There’s no heat,” Caleb said. “My mother had wood fires. I’d like to add a furnace and air conditioning.”

“Yes, that would be great,” I chimed in, because if it was a Noah situation outside, it was like the storehouses of snow in here. Being drenched, I’d been looking forward to warming up, but the air felt practically icy. There was no fire in any of the many hearths we passed, which were full of soot instead of crackling logs. Each room we toured showed more dust, darkness, and dilapidation, the three Ds of neglected houses.

I had never paid much attention to décor stuff before, but I had started when I took the job with Marc. I’d been looking up topics about architecture and decorating—doing some homework (which was also new to me). I saw that this place was obviously old, with beautiful doors and a pretty staircase. But it also weirdly seemed like a time capsule from the nineteen eighties, like my nana’s former house. For example, the kitchen had a dropped ceiling, tile countertops and matching backsplash, and honey oak cabinets.

“My mother remodeled a few things when she first moved here,” Caleb explained as we toured that room. “She never touched anything again after that.” He pointed at the microwave, which was close to the same size as my car. “That doesn’t work, and neither does the oven and three of the four burners on the stove.”

The only room that seemed acceptable to me was the one he was using as his office, which had a nice desk and other normal furniture, as well as a space heater. I went immediately to that and stretched out my hands. “Oh, that’s nice,” I sighed.

“I’ll get you something to put on when we go upstairs,” he told me.

We did troop there next and found six bedrooms that were dusty, dirty, et cetera. This was a big house meant for a big farm family, one that had apparently not minded the cold because it was freezing up there, too. I shivered through the tour, which included the bathrooms with original tile that was very pretty but also pretty stained, and the room that Caleb said he was using for himself.

“This was mine when I was a kid,” he mentioned.

It looked that way. There was only a twin bed, and Marc laughed when he saw that.

“I might be able to fit ok, but you?” he asked. Caleb was at least a couple of inches taller, well above the six-foot mark. There was also a beat-up skateboard in the corner and some papers piled on the desk, but the eyecatcher in the room was a bookshelf that covered one whole wall and was stuffed with paperbacks andhardcovers. I looked at the titles while Caleb went into the closet and came out with a sweatshirt, which he handed to me.

“Thank you,” I said, truly grateful. I took off my coat and his eyes widened.

“That’s…”

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