Karin wanted to keep cleaning up, but the Fire Marshall had
ordered the power turned off at the building, and the first task on Roger’s
list was to repair the electrical issues that had caused the short in the first
place. There would be no lights until the electrician was done and the building
inspector signed off and then she would have to wait for Consumers Energy to
send out one of their technicians to inspect it as well before they would turn
it back on.
There was nothing more she could do in the dark, so she
grabbed her clothes that she’d left hanging in the closet, along with several
items of her mother’s that she thought she could wash and save. Karin drove
home with tears still streaming down her face. Every time she thought she had
caught her breath, another memory invaded her mind and caused her to start
blubbering again.
She parked in the garage and went in the back door when she
got home. She stayed at the back of the house, taking a shower, working on
laundry and cleaning her own kitchen and bathroom. Nothing was clean enough for
her. Any messages or mail waiting at the front office would have to wait until
morning, she didn’t want to risk anyone catching her out front and knocking on
the door, she just didn’t think she had the energy to face another person.
She opened the cupboard in her own kitchen and saw a stock
of liquors.
“Is this how it started, Momma? Just a few bottles? An
average household bar supply? When did it get out of control?” Karin said out
loud.
Karin’s own stock included Amaretto, Rum, Vodka, Whiskey and
a few bottles of wine; just what she would need for any occasion, and she could
always make whatever cocktail she was in the mood for. Her refrigerator
contained sweet and sour mix, cans of soda and Kahlua. Karin didn’t drink every
night, when she had a lot of work to do, she didn’t even consider the liquor
cabinet, but went straight for the coffee pot.
“I don’t have a problem,” she insisted to the emptiness of
her house. Then, she poured herself an Amaretto Sour and went to her bedroom.
She sipped the drink while she watched late night television, and soon welcomed
a deep and peaceful sleep.
In the morning, she set out to get her paperwork done early
so that she could get over to First Street and not waste any daylight. She
dialed her voice mail and the first message was from the previous morning, she
was ready to press the button that would delete the message assuming it was the
first call from Troy Bennett, the one that had come through when she was on the
phone with the Dunewood Press. But, then the voice she heard was unfamiliar.
She quickly grabbed a pen and paper and started to scratch out notes.
“Discuss proposal… Piermont Group… schedule interview…Yikes!”
Karin wrote on her notepad. She jotted down the phone number, and could barely
stand to listen to the rest of the routine messages that filled her voice mail
box. As soon as they were done, she hung up the phone and dialed the number for
the Piermont Group.
“Our board will meet this Friday,” the secretary told her. “You
may come to be interviewed at two o’clock if you still want to be considered
for the position.” Karin was a little off put by the coldness of the process,
but said that yes, of course, she would be at the interview. She added it to
her planner, let out a little squeal of excitement and then turned back to the
work in front of her.
As she processed paperwork and put away files, she noticed
the loan application still out on her desk. She thought about how nice it would
be to have a home to go to at the end of the day. Moving into the back room of
her office space had made so much sense when she first got started, but she
didn’t like the feeling that she had to hide out if she didn’t want to talk to
anyone. A home away from the office would be good for her sanity.
Karin imagined herself pouring a drink and escaping to the
back deck of the house to overlook Lake Michigan. It would be impossible to
stay stressed out in that environment. If she could get the Piermont contract,
then she was sure that she could get the loan. She thought about calling the
Realtor and letting her know that she was interested in the property, but then
decided it was better to wait until she knew for sure that she could do it.
Karin finished up her office work and then checked the
laundry. She had run her mother’s clothes through her machines twice with some
heavy duty detergent, and a heavily perfumed fabric softener. They smelled
okay, she still thought there was a hint of smoke, but her mother was a smoker
so she thought she might never get it out completely. She at least had some
clean clothes to take to her mother.
She packed her backpack with her own grubby clothes for
cleaning up later in the day and went to run errands. She put the back later
sign up, knowing that she would have to take a break and make it back to the
office at some point in the day.
Her first stop was the property on North Madison, where she
caught a few more tenants at home and let them know who she was and what her
job would be as she took over managing the property.
“Also, we do have one vacancy here, so if you have a friend
with good references who is looking for a place, be sure to have them call my
office.” She told the current tenants, giving them her business card.
Next, she headed for
the hospital, with the clean clothes for her mother.
“I’m going to check out Lutheran Life Villages today,” Karin
told her mother’s doctor.
“I think that’s a good choice,” he assured her. She left the
clothes with the nurses, so that they could help Virginia get dressed after her
shower. Karin left the hospital and went to the nursing home just down the
street. The nurses had given her a list of questions to ask at the home to
ensure that her mother would get the care she needed. She left the office of
admissions at Lutheran Life Villages with a contract in her hand. Virginia’s
doctor had given the all clear for Virginia to leave the hospital as soon as
Karin could show that she had a place to live where she would receive proper
care.
When all her professional business was complete, she headed
back to the office to change her clothes. She saw the number one flashing and
tapped the play button on the answering machine as she stepped into the
bathroom to change into her cleaning and painting clothes. Max LaLane’s voice
came through the speaker. She replayed his message after she got dressed and
called him back.
She called Roger on her way out the door to tell him that
they were all set to get started on the repairs at the First Street house and
it looked like the insurance company would easily cover his estimate. That was
good news for both of them. She called attorney John Kinsmore to give him the
news as well and to let him know that the work was already underway.
Karin met the upstairs tenant outside the building when she
arrived.
“Hi, Ms. Anderson. My brothers are helping me get all of my
stuff out today. The insurance is going to cover everything that I lost.” She said.
“I’m glad to hear it.” Karin said.
“Since a lot of the stuff in the apartment is trash from all
the smoke, would it be okay if we just put it in the dumpster out back?” she
asked.
“Dumpster?” Karin said.
“Yeah, they dropped it off this morning. I figured it was
for the clean up.” Karin looked around the back of the house and saw a twenty
yard dumpster sitting in the back yard.
“Wow. Roger is fast.” Karin said. “Yes, go ahead and use the
dumpster for anything in the apartment that you can’t salvage.” Karin went into
the downstairs apartment and started hauling the garbage bags that she had
filled the night before out to the dumpster. Then, she started to fill some
more. When Roger arrived with his hired guys, they helped her move out the
furniture. Between the two apartments, the dumpster was nearly full by the end
of the day.
“I’ve got the bathroom all cleared out so that the
electrician can get in there tomorrow.” Karin told Roger.
“Okay, he’ll be here in the morning. I can meet him so you
don’t have to, and the guys will be back again tomorrow to tear up the carpets
in both units.” Roger said.
“Great. We’re making good progress so far.”
“See you tomorrow.”
Karin was left alone in the building again. The unit was
basically empty. She had filled her car with garbage bags of clothing and
things of her mother’s that she thought she could save, and everything else had
gone to the dumpster. Once Roger’s guys had shown up, the clean out went faster
than she had expected. A friend who owned a professional cleaning business had
sold her a few gallons of the cleaning product that they used for smoke damage
and she grabbed a bottle and read the directions. She made up a bucket of
cleaning solution, set up a ladder and started in one corner of the bathroom.
She knew that the contractors would make more mess in there and it would have
to be cleaned several times, but the plumbing still worked and she figured if
she could get it clean enough, they’d be able to use it and that would save
them from running to the local gas station every time someone needed a
bathroom. It wasn’t much, but getting it clean made her feel like she was
accomplishing something. She raced against the setting sun to get it finished
before her daylight ran out.
When it was dark, she went back to the office and spent the
rest of the evening sorting through the garbage bags of Virginia’s personal
items trying to see what she could save. The counselor at the nursing home had
told her that their residents were generally happier if they had things from
home that helped them to feel more secure. She figured that this would be
especially true for her mother who no longer had the mental capacity to
understand what was happening to her.
Karin was just about to call it a night when the phone rang.
She considered ignoring it, but then changed her mind and picked it up. It was
Jay.
“I’m going to be in town again this weekend. Can I see you?”
he said.
“I just got the go ahead to work on the place that had the
fire. All of time has to be spent there. I can’t afford to take another weekend
off.”
“How about just one dinner?” he asked.
“Ummm,” she hesitated. “I can do one later dinner. There’s
no electricity over there, so I’ve got to make the most of every minute of
daylight available.”
“I’ll take it.” He said. “Friday night, dinner after dark. I’ll
be over at ten o’clock on Friday night.”
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