Page 13 of The Forever Formula
If I did decide to stay, I wouldn’t need to work right away. I had decent savings, no debt, and Grandpa had this place paid off. Plus, he had a life insurance policy that would mean more money coming my way soon. It would be enough to afford food and utilities for months, plus the tax bill.
If I decided to move away, I wasn’t sure I’d land back in Houston, though. What was waiting for me there? Nothing anymore. Well, except a good friend. But I needed to make my next move strategically. For now, the most logical thing was to hang around.
After my call with Megan, I walked around the cabin, taking inventory of it.
Could I really stay here forever? I wasn’t sure. But a thought dawned on me.
Whether I sold it or stayed, the cabin was run-down and shabby ... I should do at least some work on it. After all, I’d spent a reasonable amount of time watching HGTV. I knew that you’d get more money for a house that appeared freshly painted, at least.
First things first.
I grabbed a roll of heavy-duty trash bags and set to work de-junking. Grandpa wasn’t a hoarder, but he liked to keep as much stuff as he could. He always said,You never know when you might need it.
I laughed at that thought as I opened the first linen closet and tossed out a broken snow-cone maker, five mismatched socks, a Connect Four box with a Monopoly board inside, and two left boots. Where the right boots went, I could only wonder.
Grandpa Paul was clearly not organized in the closet department. I managed to fill four giant trash bags by the time I realized I hadn’t had a sip of water in hours.
After lugging the bags outside to my car to take to the dump and gulping down a bottle of water, I realized I was starving. I’d gone through the meager supply of groceries I’d bought when I first got here, and the basket of goodies from Natalie, but it was time to get some real groceries.
The only problem was, my car wouldn’t start.Great.
My only choice was to grab the keys to Grandpa’s old red Ford. The front fender was damaged and I hated thinking of the accident, but I couldn’t stay here stranded when the truck was just sitting there. I might as well try it. Only problem was the truck was a manual, and while I had learned to drive in it, I wasn’t sure I’d retained all that much.
Turning the key in the ignition, I managed to immediately stall it. This was going to be interesting.
• • •
Once I’d made a few trips to the dump, the donation center, and the grocery store, I had the manual transmission down pat, more or less, erring on the side of less. But finally, the cabin was looking so much better.
It was time to take the next step. By the time Megan got here the next day, this place might seem downright modern.
I poured out half the can of pale gray color into the pan and slid the paint roller through it. “Sorry, Grandpa Paul,” I said out loud. He had sworn the faded yellow was gorgeous all these years, even when I tried to suggest we simply give it a fresh coat of the same color.
Although most of the cabin was natural log, there were a few walls here and there with drywall. I knew Grandpa Paul would roll in his grave if I painted the exterior log walls, but the inner yellow walls had to be dealt with.
As I rolled the first stroke of paint onto the surface, I felt proud of the work I was doing. I’d always felt like this was my house, but putting paint on the wall meant something to me, and I knew why that was.
Roger had never let me make my mark on his house. He’dsaidit was our place, but he didn’t trust me to make any changes. Not that it was a horrible place, but the idea of renovating always sounded fun to me. Finally doing it for myself, it meant something big.
• • •
After just a few hours, the painting was done ... not that it was a terribly large cabin. But I stood back and admired my work. A buyer would definitely see the charm in it now. Or, heck, maybe I would still call this place home. I wasn’t sure yet.
Now that the walls looked so much better, it occurred to me just how dingy the cabinets were. I tried to clean them, but it was no use. What they needed was a fresh coat of white paint.
I rifled around in the shed and found the can labeledcabinet paint. Grandpa Paul was good about labeling, even if the man couldn’t make sense of a closet.
As I headed out with the can in hand, my heart skipped a beat at the sight of a black car parked in the driveway.
The man standing beside the car was Mr. Davis, the funeral home director, and also a personal friend of Grandpa’s. He wore a black suit, which seemed too formal for the middle of the day, but I supposed that was his regular attire at the funeral home.
He gave me a sympathetic frown as he spoke. “Hello again, Miss Rachel.”
“Hi, Mr. Davis.” I managed a smile. That seemed to put him at ease.
“Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances. Is now a good time?” he asked, his brow creasing.
It dawned on me then that I was wearing one of Grandpa’s giant T-shirts, and it was covered in splotches of paint. Not to mention my hair was a rat’s nest.
