Three Sisters Finished the House He Left

Jody Drives By

Eight days after the last wall went up, on a Sunday afternoon, I was out on the deck alone sweeping sawdust into a pile. Tate was at the hardware store for more tarps.

I heard a truck slow on the road. I knew the sound of it before I looked up. It was Jody’s.

He did not drive on. He sat at the end of our gravel for a full minute with the engine running. Then he turned in, drove up slowly, and parked by the garage slab where his tarp used to be.

He got out and stood there with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He looked up at the trusses for a long time. Then he walked toward me.

I set my broom against the wall and waited. I did not walk down to meet him. I did not walk away either.

He came up the plank ramp and stood on the deck. He did not look at me at first. He walked to the nearest corner, the one where the front wall met the side wall, and put his hand on it.

Then he did what any framer would do. He took a tape out of his pocket and measured the diagonals of the front bedroom. He checked them twice. Then he went to the kitchen and did the same thing.

When he was done, he stood in the middle of the house and looked up at the trusses again.

“Who did your trusses?” he asked.

“The truss company. Tuesday.”

“Who framed the walls?”

“You know who framed the walls, Jody.”

He nodded slowly. He looked at the big kitchen window and the mountains through it.

“These are square,” he said. “Every room. Within an eighth.” He cleared his throat. “That’s better than my guys do most days.”

I did not say anything. I could have. I had a whole speech I had made up in my head on three Saturdays and a dozen nights. I did not use one word of it.

“I didn’t think you’d finish it,” he said finally. His voice was low. “I figured you’d have to hire somebody and it’d be next spring.”

“I heard,” I said. “At the diner.”

He flinched. That was all. Just a little flinch, like a man touching a hot stove.

“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “That was a stupid thing to say.”

“It was,” I said. “But that’s not what I need you to be sorry for, Jody. You had eleven thousand dollars of our money. You left us a house with no roof before winter. We saved six years for this. Six years.”

He looked at his boots for a long time.

“They offered me steady work,” he said. “All winter. Insurance for Jolene and the boys. I was scared if I said I had to finish your place first, they’d give it to somebody else. So I just went. I kept thinking I’d call you. Every day I thought it.”

“I believe you,” I said. “I still need the money back. Not for the walls you built. You built half and they’re good walls. For the half you didn’t.”

He nodded. He did not argue. He did not say he would. He just walked back down the ramp, got in his truck and drove away slowly.

I picked up my broom and finished sweeping. My hands did not shake at all. I noticed that.

Fritz

The bank does not pay a construction draw on your word. They send a man to look.

Our draw inspector was a retired builder named Fritz who had been doing inspections for the bank since before I was born. He was tall and slow-talking, and everybody in the valley said he was the hardest man to get past on a framing check.

He came out on a Wednesday morning, a bright cold day with frost on the windshields. I took the morning off work. Annika came on her day off. Mira came on her break from the breakfast shift, still in her apron.

Fritz walked the whole house with a clipboard and a flashlight, though he hardly needed the flashlight with the sun coming through the open walls. He checked the headers. He checked the nailing on the sheathing. He looked at the top plates and the truss ties and the corners.

Finally, he came back out and signed his sheet. He tore off our copy and handed it to me.

“First try,” he said. “Nothing to correct. I don’t see that very often.” He looked at the three of us. “Your dad taught you?”

“He did,” I said.

“Tell him I said he did it right.”