Page 42 of Necessary Cruelty
That feeling of smug satisfaction lasts as long as it takes to open my front door.
Controlled chaos is the only word for it. Two workers with tool belts strapped around their waists are on the stairs, hammering down fresh pieces of wood to replace the steps that have been rotted and broken my entire life. Another one slips past me with an armful of tile, headed for the tiny bathroom that all three of us share.
What in the hell are they doing here?
A balding man with a paunchy midsection, dressed in a cheap button-down shirt and khaki pants approaches me with a clipboard in his hand. “Are you Zaya Milbourne?”
I nod more out of shock than anything else.
“You need to sign this work order and then initial there.” He thrusts the clipboard under my face. Obviously sensing my hesitation, he clears his throat. “Everything is already paid for, but without a signature from the homeowner, we can’t guarantee the work.”
I wave him away and the man just shrugs and walks off, like it doesn’t make a difference to him.
My house is being renovated.
Vin set this up, all of it.
It has to be just another form of manipulation, and I refuse to accept it. I tell the nearest workman to stop what he’s doing and take it all away, and he just ignores me. But as I hurry through the house, it quickly becomes clear this isn’t the sort of thing that can just be undone.
There is new flooring in the living room, and the last of the wallpaper has been scraped off so the walls could be painted a soft gray. In addition to the stairs being reinforced, workmen carry wooden timbers into the unfinished basement to reinforce the sagging floor. Grandpa’s sleeping chair has been replaced with a hospital bed that elevates nearly into a sitting position.
I wouldn’t believe it was possible to do all this in one day if I wasn’t seeing it for myself.
Zion strolls past with a sandwich dangling from his mouth and a bag of chips in his hand.
My mouth falls open before I can stop it. “Where did you get that food?”
He raises his eyebrows, speaking with his mouth still full. “Kitchen.”
Of course, he got food from the kitchen. The kitchen that hasn’t had anything but expired cans of green beans and frozen trays from Meals on Wheels for the last year. I stomp down the hallway, noting with some aggravation that the floorboards no longer creak.
Our dingy kitchen has been scrubbed to within an inch of its life, although that isn’t enough to hide the decades of neglect and wear. But if the new countertops and appliances lining the hallway just waiting to be installed are any indication, an even greater transformation is to come.
And I want to tear my fucking hair out.
Zion comes up behind me, slurping on a can of soda that definitely wasn’t here a few hours ago. “Nice, isn’t it?”
The glare I cast him speaks volumes. The loudest thing it says is that we can’t trust charity from Vin Cortland.
“Let’s just enjoy it while it lasts,” Zion says with a shrug. “There was even a nurse in here earlier giving Grandpa a sponge bath.”
I also hadn’t missed the brand new hospital bed in the living room and a row of oxygen tanks that the insurance usually only paid to replace every other month that Grandpa needed it.
You can look a gift horse in the mouth when it’s attached to more strings than would choke a marionette. Nothing in this world comes for free, especially not from a guy like Vin Cortland.
If Vin is trying to get under my skin, he succeeded.
I hate that.
He isn’t even here overseeing all the work he ordered. I search every inch of the house, ostensibly to catalogue all the invasive changes, but don’t catch so much as a glimpse of his characteristically smug face so I can throw something at it. It’s somehow even more annoying that he would do this and not even give me a chance to refuse it.
Because I realize as I tour the house that not all of this can be taken back. The walls can’t be unpainted, it isn’t possible to un-repair the foundation or replace the wooden stair steps with the broken pieces in that trash container outside. Some of this is permanent, the labor paid for, the work signed, sealed, and delivered.
Which means I’m in Vin Cortland’s debt.
That bastard.
The men wrap up for the day pretty quickly after I get home, although I wonder if they’ve received some kind of signal. None of them will look me in the eye as they file out to their trucks, except for the apparent foreman who holds the clipboard out to me again with a hopeful look on his face. My glare chases him out the door.