Barbara Kingsolver - Unsheltered

For Lily Hopp Kingsolver

After the final no there comes a yes

And on that yes the future world depends.

Wallace Stevens, The Well Dressed Man with a Beard

The simplest thing would be to tear it down, the man said. The house is a shambles.

She took this news as a blood-rush to the ears: a roar of peasant ancestors with rocks in their fists, facing the evictor. But this man was a contractor. Willa had called him here and she could send him away. She waited out her panic while he stood looking at her shambles, appearing to nurse some satisfaction from his diagnosis. She picked out words.

Its not a living thing. You dont just pronounce it dead. Anything that goes wrong with a structure can be replaced with another structure. Am I right?

Correct. What I am saying is that the structure needing to be replaced is all of it. Im sorry. Your foundation is nonexistent.

Again the roar on her eardrums. She stared at the mans black coveralls, netted with cobwebs hed collected in the crawl space. Petrofaccio was his name. Pete. How could a house this old have a nonexistent foundation?

Not the entire house. You see where they put on this addition? Those walls have nothing substantial to rest on. And the addition entails your kitchen, your bathrooms, everything you basically need in a functional house.

Includes, she thought. Entails is the wrong word.

One of the neighbor kids slid out his back door. His glance hit Willa and bounced off quickly as he cut through the maze of cars in his yard and headed out to the alley. He and his brother worked on the vehicles mostly at night, sliding tools back and forth under portable utility lights. Their quiet banter and intermittent Spanish expletives of frustration or success drifted through Willas bedroom windows as the night music of a new town. She had no hard feelings toward the vehicle boneyard, or these handsome boys and their friends, who all wore athletic shorts and plastic bath shoes as if life began in a locker room. The wrong here was a death sentence falling on her house while that one stood by, nonchalant, with its swaybacked roofline and vinyl siding peeling off in leprous shreds. Willas house was brick. Not straw or sticks, not a thing to get blown away in a puff.

The silence had extended beyond her turn to speak. Mr. Petrofaccio courteously examined the two mammoth trees that shaded this yard and half the block. Willa had admired the pair of giants out her kitchen window and assumed they were as old as the house, but hadnt credited them with a better life expectancy.

I have no idea why someone would do that, he finally offered. Put up an addition with no foundation. No reputable contractor would do that.

It did seem to be sitting directly on the ground, now that she looked, with the bottom courses of bricks relaxing out of rank into wobbly rows. A carapace of rusted tin roofing stretched over the gabled third floor and the two-story addition cobbled on the back, apparently in haste. Two tall chimneys leaned in opposite directions. Cracks zigzagged lightningwise down the brick walls. How had she not seen all this? Willa was the one who raised her anxiety shield against every family medical checkup or late-night ring of the phone, expecting the worst so life couldnt blindside them. But shed looked up contractors that morning with no real foreboding. Probably assuming her family had already used up its quota of misfortune.

I cant hire you to tear down my house and start over. Willa ran her hands through her hair at the temples, and felt idiotic. Both-hands-on-the-temples was a nervous habit shed been trying to break for about twenty years, since her kids told her it made her look like The Scream. She shoved her fists into the pockets of her khaki shorts. We were thinking wed fix it up, sell it, and get something closer to Philadelphia. We dont need this much room. Nobody needs this much room.

On the moral side of things, Mr. Petrofaccio gave no opinion.

But youre saying we would have to repair it first to put it on the market. And Ive noticed about every fourth house in this town has a For Sale sign. Theyre all in better shape than this one, is that what youre telling me?

Twenty five percent, that would be a high estimate. Ten percent is about right.

And are they selling?

They are not.

So thats also a reason not to tear down the house. She realized her logic in this moment was not watertight. Okay, you know what? The main thing is we live here. Weve got my husbands disabled father with us right now. And our daughter.

Also a baby in the picture, am I right? I saw baby items, a crib and all. When I was inspecting the ruptures in the ductwork on the third floor.

Her jaw dropped, a little.

Sorry, he said. I had to get behind the crib to look at the ductwork. You said you are looking to downsize, so I just wondered. Seems like a lot of family.

She didnt respond. Pete extracted a handkerchief from his pocket, mopped his face, blew his nose, and put it away. He must have been braising inside those coveralls.

That is a blessed event, maam, he suggested. A baby.

Thank you. Its my sons child, just born. Were driving up to Boston this weekend to meet the baby and bring them the crib.

Pete nodded thoughtfully. Due respect, maam, people usually ask for an inspection before they purchase a house.

We didnt buy it! She wrestled her tone into neutral. We inherited. We were in Virginia wondering what to do with some old mansion in New Jersey after my aunt died, and then out of the blue my husband got a job offer from Chancel. A half-hour commute, thats too good to be true, right?

Your husband is a professor up there? Petes nostrils flared, sniffing for money maybe, engaging the common misconception that academics have it.

On a one-year contract that may not be renewed, she said, taking care of that. My aunt had this place rented for quite a while. She was in a facility out in Ocean City.

Sorry for your loss.

Its been a year, all right. She and my mother died a week apart, same kind of rare cancer, and they were twins. Seventy-nine.

Now that is something. Sad, I mean, but that is like a magazine story. Some of that crazy crap they make up and nobody believes.

She let out an unhappy laugh. Im a magazine editor.

Oh yeah? Newsweek, National Geographic, like that?

Yeah, like that. Glossy, award winning. Mine went broke.

Pete clucked his tongue. You hate to hear it.

Sorry to keep you standing out here. Can I offer you some iced tea?

Thanks, no. Gotta go check a termite damage on Elmer.

Right. Despite her wish to forget everything hed told her, Willa found his accent intriguing. Before this move shed dreaded having to listen to New Jerseyans walking out the doo-ah, driving to the shoo-ah, but South Jersey was full of linguistic surprises. This Pete was the homegrown deal, part long-voweled Philly lowball, part Pennsylvania Amish or something. She watched him scrutinize the garage on the property line: two stories, antique glass windows, thick pelt of English ivy. You think that building goes with this house? she asked. The deed isnt very clear.

That is not yours. That would be the stip house to the property next door.

The stip house.

Yes maam. When they sold these lots back in the day, they had stipulations. Improve the property in one years time, show intent to reside, plant trees, and all like that. Folks put up these structures while they got it together to build their real house.

Really.

You look around this town youll see a few, all built on the same plan. Trusses like a barn, fast and cheap. Some guy was doing well in the stip house business I figure.