Out the Summerhill Road: A Novel

Sarah’s Revolution

Part 3: The ’60s • The Cold Springs Revolutions 119 Sarah’s Revolution Sarah emptied the pan under the kitchen sink and replaced it. Eddie was gone for good. So was her money. And her house was falling down. The foundation needed repairs. One could drop a marble on the floor of any room of the house, and it would roll. The roof leaked. There were leaks everywhere. A pipe under the kitchen sink dripped. Water sometimes stood around one of the commodes upstairs. The faucets dripped. Cold air streamed through the window frames. The house needed paint, inside and out. And the rain had gone on for days. Not a strong hardy downpour that came and left a blue sky. Rather, there had been clouds and cold and drizzle. With weather like this, there was nothing to do but stay inside and get something accomplished. Pulling open a kitchen drawer, Sarah scrambled around among old grocery receipts, pens without ink, erasers that smudged, broken Crayolas, shoelaces and old keys until she found a small tablet and a pen that worked. She walked through the dining room and, crossing the wide entrance hall, she stepped down into the living room. She sat in a chair by the window to make a list of needed repairs and the cost of each. The house was insured for two hundred thousand dollars. She doubted that it was worth that much. But the property was valuable. Only John’s and Eve’s attachment to the house had kept her from putting it on the market. Even as she contemplated the possibility, she could hear their protests: “Mom, what are you thinking of? Where would we live? We grew up here. We love this house.” This from Eve, and from John, the calm voice of practicality, his idea of practicality: “Mom, the house is paid for. I’m thinking about working on the house next summer. I could paint it. I’d start with my room. I’m thinking purple, almost black. And I wouldn’t charge much.” 120 Out the Summerhill Road Sarah groans. “Oh, dear Lord, deliver me,” she prayed. Tapping the pencil against her teeth, she looked at the first item. Foundation, $50,000. She was pretty sure that number was in the ball park. That’s exactly what Isabel’s foundation had cost. But she didn’t have fifty thousand dollars. She barely had five thousand. As she was writing the word roof, the second repair most needed, the living room suddenly brightened. The blues and yellows in the sofas and the colors in the rug became riotous . The forecast of storms and high winds had been wrong. Storms. What did the weatherman know? She opened the front door and stepped out into sunshine. She looked up at the sky, at the dizzy blue of it, the lazy clouds in it. She saw that the Alexandria rose was filled with hot pink blooms, one or two opened wide. She sighed. Only her garden seemed to flourish. Not the house. Not her children. But her garden was magnificent! She looked down at the list she carried, the awful list with its dire projections. She tore it in two. Feeling the warmth of the sun, her spirits rose. She went upstairs and picked up the phone in her bedroom. What she needed was a game of tennis . She called Isabel. “Sarah, are you crazy? Look out your window!” “I heard the forecast. The front’s moving slowly. It won’t be here until noon. And the sun just broke through. It’s a perfect morning.” Isabel laughed. “Sarah, today’s Friday. My trainer’s coming . Remember? And with all this flab, I need a workout.” “Well, la-de-da! I’ve seen your good-looking trainer. Everybody ’s talking.” Isabel sighed. “Do you think I care?” But she did care. And Sarah knew she did. “That was mean,” she said. “I could cut out my tongue when I say something like that. Nobody’s talking. Forgive me.” Part 3: The ’60s • The Cold Springs Revolutions 121 Isabel’s laugh was wicked. “Maybe they should be,” she said and hung up. The truth was that nobody gossiped about Isabel and her trainer, or about Isabel and her financial adviser. Nobody gossiped about Isabel. Period. From time to time, some man, usually a newcomer, would make a stab at marrying Isabel, or at least...