Even though the Huntleys had only lived on Oleander Place for a couple of months, they were well enough known and well enough liked that it didn’t take long for a crew of half a dozen men to show up and start work, with a couple of their wives to assist in the cleanup. Piece by piece, the men hauled mattresses, box springs, the wooden frame of the dresser, the low table, then bits and pieces of the bunk beds through the family room and into the garage, stacking everything neatly along the wall.
Willard tried to help, but his hand really was starting to throb and he felt dizzy every time he went into the bedroom, so finally he took Catherine’s advice-all the while glum, grudging, and frustrated-and remained in the family room. It grated on his nerves, though, whenever one of the men carried another piece through to the garage.
I should be helping them. It’s my damned house. I should be able to take care of it. I shouldn’t have to call on neighbors and then sit here like a cripple while they do all the work.
Finally, the men reported that, except for the clothing hanging in the closet and the pictures on the wall, the room was empty.
“Want us to rip up the carpet as well?” Ned Wilcox asked. “I used to work as a carpet layer to pay for college. It shouldn’t take long.”
“Let me come back and see,” Willard said. He could help with that at least.
At the threshold of the bedroom, he surveyed the damage.
The faint odor he had detected earlier in the bathroom seemed stronger now, even though most of the overflow had been sopped up in the hall and the bedroom.
He wrinkled his nose and took a deep breath. The air was damp, musty, almost dank, as if it belonged in a old earth-floored, spider-web encrusted cellar. The odor was sharp, acidic, not quite strong enough to draw attention to itself but easily noticeable if one concentrated.
The most obvious result of the spill, however, was clearly evident, now that the carpet had been removed.
Arcing from the corner diagonal to the door to midway along the closet wall, a jagged crack showed stark and black against the concrete. On the far side of the break, the floor was stone dry, the typical grey of cement, with occasional dark brown rough spots where the padding had been glued down. Nothing unusual there, except for an inch-wide fissure along the back wall, perhaps two inches in from the floorboards-the extension of the crack Willard had first noticed in the living room and traced further in the kitchen. Now it was evident that the crack continued the entire length of the back wall. If he removed the carpet in the fifth bedroom-Willard’s office-he would no doubt find the same condition along the wall there.
On the near side of the break, however, the floor was still damp, almost black, with an odd sheen that suggested that it would be slippery. It looked miasmal, unhealthy.
Willard stepped into the room.
The floor wasn’t slippery at all, he was surprised to discover, but he could tell that it would take a while longer for it to dry completely. The kids would have to camp out in the family room for a couple of days, he realized.
Wilcox and one of the other men-Willard thought his last name was Kemp-stepped into the room after him.
“That’s some crack you got,” Wilcox said.
“Kind of reminds me of the Grand Canyon,” Kemp added. “Just not quite as wide or as deep.”
Willard nodded.
Wilcox moved past Willard and Kemp, toward the far corner where the crack began. He seemed to be pacing, measuring something.
He turned and looked at each of the other corners in turn, then at Willard and Kemp.
“You’ve got a bit of a slope in here, too,” he said. “I figure a good three, four inches difference between the door over there and this corner.” He gestured at the crack. “If it weren’t for that, the water would probably have run clear across the room, under the wall, and up into the studs. Could have been a real problem.”
Willard nodded.
Wilcox pointed along the back wall. “And you got another problem there,” indicating where the wall had separated from the foundation. “Never seen anything like that before.”
Then he brushed his hands against the sides of his pants, as if getting rid of a layer of dust or something, and said, “Anything else we can do for you, Huntley?”
Willard shook his head. For some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to speak. Perhaps because actually seeing the fissure running across the entire width of the room had startled him, perhaps because he was already fuming-yet again-at the incredible ineptitude, or worse, of the builders. And perhaps because he understood that whatever was happening here, whatever would be needed to make this place livable for him and his family might just be beyond his ability to fix.