Suzie jabbed the window’s apron with a screwdriver. She wasn’t sure how far it sank in, but it certainly didn’t bounce back the way it would if she jabbed a new piece of wood. So for sure there was rot. The question was how intense did she have to get about repairs. Maybe it was time to find a carpenter.
She actually enjoyed home repair. She was all right with plumbing and drywall, great with house paint, but could never quite guess right when it came to the table saw. Not that she didn’t get her measurements right. Just that the cut never went quite where she was expecting.
That and removing the wood around a window could get ugly fast. The last thing she wanted was to have half the wall come down with everything else.
She jabbed the wall a few inches down. It gave even more than the window had. She worked her way down to the bottom, where she left a hole. This was a lot more than she’d bargained for. Already squatting in the driveway, she simply sat down.
“Mrs. H.? Can we talk to you for a minute?” Tracy and Emma stood over her.
“Sure. What’s on your minds?” She struggled to her feet, feeling like a dweeb.
“Can Emma live here?”
“What? Why?” Suzie’s stomach clenched. There weren’t really a lot of rooms in the house available. But if Emma really needed it. But…. a teenage girl mixed in with her two teenage boys? And if she let Emma stay the night, how could she argue against letting Tracy or Lisa stay? But if Emma really needed it.
“Emma’s got this scary brother. She needs to get away from him.”
“Scary?” Suzie tried to visualize a brother as scary as Gene’s father. It seemed a bit odd, but it could be. She scanned Emma’s bare arms for bruises or cuts. They seemed a bit thin, but otherwise perfectly fine. Certainly there were no broken bones.
“He’s… he… he’s not that bad.” Emma started out strong, then ended with a mumble.
“Didn’t you say you had to crawl out the window to get away from him?”
“I… I do that all the time.”
“Bruce said you can’t go back to the abandoned house anymore, either. Right? So it’s ok to ask. I mean one way or another you aren’t going back, right?”
“Well, yeah. I’ll… I’ll go back. Sometime.” Emma raised her head, but looked at the ground and her mouth wobbled.
“Maybe we should call Social Services,” Suzie suggested.
“No!” Both girls looked horrified by the suggestion.
“N-no, it’s not that bad. Really.” Emma held her hands up to ward off disaster.
“But you let Gene stay. You’re even adopting him.” Tracy was ready to argue.
“Gene gave my name to Social Services as his contact when he landed in the hospital. Even before I started trying to adopt him, I was made his foster parent. Before that he stayed overnight in Ben’s room. They called them sleep overs.”
“Oh.” Emma looked crestfallen and mumbled. “I see.”
Suzie made a commiserating face. She really, really did not want to have to turn Emma away, but she couldn’t take in the whole world.
“See? That’s why I said you had to come home with us.” Tracy flounced off with a grin, as if gifted with superior reasoning and proud of it.
Emma smiled shyly, lifted the fingers of one hand in fair well, then followed Tracy into the house Suzie put the screwdriver in her back pocket and headed for the kitchen.
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There’s a Suzie’s House Extra about Bruce that I posted last Friday.
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