Tribute

turned and caught a movement out of the corner of her eye.
    “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” Patty threw up her hands, as if the tool were a loaded gun. “I didn’t mean to scare you. We knocked, but . . . It’s so loud in here.”
    Cilla walked over to shut off the radio. “I need it loud to hear it over the tools.”
    “I got worried when you didn’t answer the door, and there was all the noise, and your car out front. So we just came in.”
    “It’s all right. You just startled me. We?”
    “Angie and Cathy. We tried to get Penny, but she’s covering the store. It’s such a poopy day we decided we’d brave the mall, then catch a movie and round it out with dinner. We came to kidnap you.”
    “Oh, that sounds like fun.” Like torture, she thought. “I appreciate it, but I’m in the middle of this.”
    “You deserve a day off. My treat.” "Patty—”
    “I can hardly believe . . .” Cathy stepped in, trailed off with a wide-eyed stare at Cilla. “We’ve invaded. Gosh, you look so HGTV. I’m nervous about banging a nail into the wall to hang a picture, and look at you.”
    “My sister, the handyman.” Perky in a pink hoodie, Angie beamed at her. “Can we look around? Is it all right? The buzz is the action’s on the second floor.”
    “Sure. Um, it’s got a ways to go. Actually, it all has a ways.”
    “I confess, I’ve been dying to get a look inside this place for years.” Cathy glanced around at the bare walls, the bare floors, the stacks and piles of lumber and supplies. “How do you manage without a kitchen?”
    “I’m not much of a cook anyway. I’m having the stove and refrigerator that were in here retrofitted—they’re fairly fabulous. It takes time, so the kitchen’s way down on the list. Ah, the dining area’s over there, so it makes it an open floor plan. It’s good light, nice views.”
    “The back gardens look so pretty!” Patty stepped closer to the French doors. “Was this patio here?”
    “It needed work, and we redesigned it. The gardens have been a job. Your son does good work,” she said to Cathy. "And he’s got a real talent for landscape design.”
    “Thank you. We certainly think so.”
    “The dining room opens to the patio, and from the interior flows into this area I’m going to use as a sort of sitting/TV room off the living area. Powder room there’s getting new tiles, new fixtures. Coat closet here off the entryway. It’s a lot of space. It’s good space.”
    “I love that you can step outside from every room.” Angie turned a circle.
    Cilla led them upstairs where the three unexpected guests cooed over the tiles and fixtures of the completed bath, chattered over the projected master.
    “I don’t know what I’d do with a steam shower, but I would love heated tile floors in my bathroom.” Patty beamed at Cilla. “I don’t know how you know all of this, and figure it out, but the two finished rooms are just beautiful. Like something out of a magazine.”
    “The resale value’s going to skyrocket,” Cathy commented.
    “I think it would, if I were planning on selling.”
    “Sorry, my husband’s influence.” Cathy chuckled. “And I know without asking him he’d want first crack if you ever change your mind about selling. What wonderful views. It seems so solitary, even with the other houses around. I admit I like the convenience and the security of living closer to town, but if I had more country girl in me, this would be the spot.”
    “Do you ever feel her around? Janet?”
    “Angie.”
    At her mother’s frown, Angie blinked. “I’m sorry. Is that the wrong thing to ask?”
    “It’s all right,” Cilla told her. “I do sometimes. I like to think she’d approve of what I’m doing, even the changes I’m making. It matters to me.”
    “There’s such history in this house,” Cathy added. “All the people who came here, the parties, the music. The tragedy, too. It makes it more than a house. It’s a legend, isn’t it? I remember when it happened. I was pregnant with my middle child—just a couple months along, and had such morning sickness. I’d just had a bout, and Tom was trying to feed Marianna—our oldest—breakfast. She wasn’t quite two, and there was oatmeal everywhere. My next-door neighbor—Abby Fox, you remember her, Patty?”
    “I do. If there was a drop of gossip, she squeezed out more.”
    “Knew everything first, and this was no exception. She came over and told us. I burst right into tears.