El Rancho del Corazón
5 Making Plans
DAD, ANNA, AND REX returned late in the afternoon with the insurance adjuster and I could tell that Rex was laying it on the line to the guy. It didn’t sound like it was going well. Both of them had gone to their cars and I saw that they had car phones against their ears. I was pretty sure we were going to have a long call home from the hotel tonight.
“Brian, we’re going back with Rex. There’s really nothing more we can do here. I paid for the room tonight, so you can all stay there if you want to,” Dad said.
“I think once Doug, Doreen, and Rhiannon are settled in Sora’s trailer, there won’t be anything for us to do here, either,” I said. “Doug’s been talking with Ron to get the foundation to this point. Rhiannon has the plans. I’m not sure if Ron was able to organize an excavator to do the new driveway tomorrow. We brought all the new power lines down along the fencerow so they don’t cross the drive now at all.”
“We talked to Ron, also,” Dad said. “He still plans to survey and mark the drive tomorrow, even if they can’t get heavy equipment out here that fast. The modular will be here in two weeks. Are Doug, Rhiannon, and Doreen staying?”
“Doreen starts work at the newspaper Monday, but I think they are spending the weekend at Spring Mill. They won’t be back to Mishawaka until the bunkhouse is ready to move into. Then they’ll come for the things they’re moving,” I said. “It really sucks that their folks put their house on the market Monday after graduation. They have to pack out everything they don’t want given to Goodwill. I just don’t get it.”
“Different families are different. Don’t be too hard on the Swift’s. Jim and Jill aren’t bad people and they love their kids,” Dad said. “We might bring the pickup and camper down and spend the weekend if Doug and his family aren’t going to be here. Brian, this is a tough time for everyone. The insurance company is currently following the recommendation of the adjuster and is sending their own investigator out to look for signs of arson. That’s why I don’t want the place left vacant this weekend. We’re doing everything we can, but this could take a while. You need to be thinking of alternate plans for this fall.”
“Shit, Dad.”
“I’m sorry, son. We’re doing everything we can.”
“We’ll see you tomorrow afternoon. I need to come up and be with my casa so they don’t fall apart over this,” I said. “This isn’t going to go well.”
I could almost have predicted what the night would be like. Doug and Rhiannon went back to the ranch after we’d had dinner and stayed in the trailer. Doreen went back to the Hampton with Jennifer, Rose, and me. Doreen and I took Dad’s vacated bedroom. It was always fun to make love with Doreen. There was something a little wicked about it. She was my older sister’s best friend.
What she told me, though, almost made me freak out.
“Brian,” she said between rounds, “I have a favor to ask of you.”
“What is it, doll?”
“Well, you see, I’m older than most of you. My best friend is married and has a baby. I always thought we’d raise our babies together and walk down the street pushing them in a carriage side-by-side,” she said. “Silly, isn’t it? But… I guess I’m a little jealous. Anyway, none of us can support a child right now, but I expect that I’m going to want to have a baby before you guys are all out of school. I don’t think I’m the only girl who is thinking of a baby within the next couple years. I think Sugar is going to want to get started right away. Did you know her mother asks her at least once a week if she’s pregnant yet? That woman can’t wait to be a grandma.”
Doreen was rambling. I kissed her. She spent a couple minutes getting me hard and covered. I slipped into her again. We rolled over so she could be on top and push herself up to look down at me.
“A favor?” I reminded her as we started moving together.
“Yeah. Oh yeah. I’d like… I’d like to bear your first child.” I almost dumped her off of me, I was so startled. “Not right now! Not until Doug and Rhiannon are ready for us to have a baby in the family. And even though I want you to be involved in more than planting the seed, the baby would be part of our casa, raised mostly by Doug and Rhiannon and me. But I’d always make sure that our son or daughter knew you were his or her father and you’d always be able to visit and all. You just wouldn’t have the responsibility of being the full-time father. Doug would.”
“Doreen,” I said, “honey, that’s something I really have to think about. I mean, my first child. It seems like I should be involved a little more than that. I don’t know.”
“Well, it’s not like it is today or even this year. Probably not for a while yet. I just want you to know that even if I’m not first, I want your baby. And then I want to take him to Seattle—just to visit—and show him to his Aunt Betts. Maybe when she has number two. I miss her.”
Doreen had leaky eyes when she talked about missing Betts, but they flooded when she came.
Something had changed this week.
I still woke up at four-thirty, at least briefly, and I still whispered a few words to Hannah. But there was a strange sense of peace and love when I woke up for this brief pause in life. My conversations had often been an unburdening, mostly to my benefit rather than to Hannah’s. But now I felt like the burden had shifted. I was eager to get back home today. I missed her. I missed all of them. I think my connection and focus on Hannah had overwhelmed the connection I felt with each of my hearthmates at times, no matter what our relation. I even missed Josh. Now it was like the whole web was complete and I couldn’t miss one without missing them all.
But there was this overwhelming responsibility I felt, as well. I needed to take care of them all.
I love you, Hannah. I love you, Samantha. I love you, Rose. I love you, Jennifer. I love you, Courtney. I love you, Whitney. I love you, Liz. I love you, Sarah. I love you, Sora. I love you, Elaine. I love you, Nikki. I love you, Cassie. I love you, Mary. I love you, too, Josh. Just don’t make anything of it, okay?
I certainly loved the wiggling mass of naked girls that had all eventually found their way to my bed during the night. Rose was between my legs with her head on my stomach. Doreen was under my left arm. Jennifer was under the right. I lived in a world of love.
All the electric lines had been rerouted. We had both an electric and a telephone line run to the construction pole next to the trailer and one to Stall One in the barn. A utility crew checked all the lines to make sure none of them had been damaged by the fire. No propane tank had been included with the house, so we didn’t have to worry about that hazard. Ron and one of his workers walked the property planting flags on six-foot poles over the septic tank and well, and marked a solid boundary between the ruins and the new foundation. They marked the path of the new driveway that bypassed the fence around the ruins. There were poles marking the watershed of the nearest trees, as well, and I was thankful that he was taking care not to damage any more of the surrounding eco-culture than necessary. You could see that some of the nearest limbs of the big sycamore—at least twenty feet away—had still been seared by the heat from the house fire.
After we met with Ron, we went to see Rhiannon in Stall One. I needed to talk to Ron about some better wiring in her ‘office.’ She had plans laid out on her table and Doug was reading off measurements from the remodel drawings.
“Hi, Brian,” Rhiannon said. “Look what we’ve got!”
I looked over her shoulder at a beautiful rendering of a house from the catalog. It had the same look and feel as the best of classic Hoosier homesteads. But there was something special about it as well. It looked… homey.
“It looks huge!” I said. Jennifer snorted.
“Only 3,200 square feet, but really well laid out. Only a few issues, really. The six bedrooms might come down to five when we’re finished with the redrawing, but four-and-a-half baths. That will keep your women satisfied,” Rhiannon beamed.
“This must be driving you crazy, trying to get everything done and researched so quickly,” Rose said.
“I love it! This is the exciting thing about architecture. I know the parameters and I have to find or create the absolute best solution. It’s such fun!”
“Well, we’re getting ready to head back north,” I said. “There isn’t really much we can do down here right now. I know you guys wouldn’t even be down here yet if Doreen wasn’t starting work Monday. You should have a long romantic weekend together. Maybe go over to Spring Mill State Park.”
“Could you give us a minute, Brian?” Rhiannon asked. She grabbed Doug and ran out the door of the barn.
“You suppose the very mention of a romantic weekend got her so charged up she had to get satisfaction right away?” Rose laughed.
“Whatever it was, she really needed to get together with Doug and Doreen right away,” I laughed. “We’d better get ourselves ready to go. I should let Ron know we’re headed out and Doug and Rhiannon are in charge.”
By the time I was done with Ron, Rhiannon was bouncing out of the barn again with a bunch of tubes and a satchel.
“Can I hitch a ride back with you?” she asked, running up to us.
“Of course you can, Rhiannon,” I said. “But aren’t you going to spend the weekend down here?”
“Your idea of a romantic weekend down at Spring Mill was a great one. Doug and Doreen need some alone time to reconnect. They’ve had me between them almost non-stop for weeks,” Rhiannon said. “And I need to be where I can talk to Anna and to the guys in Nappanee. This is so exciting, Brian! We’re all going to have brand new houses!”
“Some of us might need to come back down tomorrow,” I said. “Dad doesn’t really want the property vacant while this insurance scam is underway. We’ll be fine for now, though.”
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