Chapter 12
Bah
For one terrifying second, I thought Raphael Segretto was going to kiss me.
Even more horrifying, I would have let him.
Seven years! Seven years and he still had the ability to take my breath away.
How pathetic was 17 I didn’t blame Rafe. After all, Raphael was born with natural charisma. He charmed women without even trying. But I wasn’t just any woman. After everything I’d been through, I should have grown a thicker skin. I should have developed a systemic immunity. Above all, I should know better than to even allow those feelings to stir up inside of me.
I didn’t breathe normally again until his rental car pulled out of the driveway, and his taillights disappeared. Even then, I was so upset, I could only pick at the dinner I had prepared for Nana Charlie and Lucy. The food tasted like ash in my mouth, and I found it difficult to swallow
I
Watching Rate interact with Lucy was heartbreaking.
If the last seven years had taught me anything, it was that I had to let go of an
of any romantic fantasies and cling to reality.
And the reality was, Rafe was a part of my past, but he had no place in my future. He’d let me down once. I wasn’t going to throw myself at him so he could abandon me and his daughter again. There were too many old wounds, too many secrets.
And besides, nothing had really changed about our situation. He was still tied to the business. Rafe was here now, but for how long? A few weeks. maybe a few months at best. I had no doubt that he would finish whatever work was needed at the Mountain Top resort, and then he would get back on his jet and fly back to whatever luxury home he lived in, in whatever country he was occupying at the moment, while he went about the business of running the hotel chain.
“Rafe found a leak in the roof in his old room,” I told Nana, just to make conversation. One–sided conversation, but at least it filled the silence at the dinner table. I’m going to go up and have a look at it and see if it is something I can fix myself”
After I had cleared away
by the dirty dishes and wiped the table, I helped Charlie move into the living room, and left her and Lucy to watch a Christmas
Removing the heavy–duty flashlight out of the kitchen drawer, I went upstairs and pulled the ladder down from the attic hatch yet again. I’d already made two trips into the attic to carry down the decorations. Now I climbed once again into the dark, dusty space I hated so much, and began picking my way carefully across the joists, avoiding the insulation–filled spaces in between.
I wasn’t even sure exactly where Raphael’s old room was in relation to the attic, as the space and shape of the house was disorienting. But I knew, generally, which side, under the slope of the roof.
That side of the attic was worse than the area where the Christmas decorations were stored. At least the storage area was visited once or twice a year. When was the last time a human ventured into this part of the attic? When I showed the light down toward my feet, there were suspicious–looking droppings littering the insulation like chocolate sprinkles.
Ugh, what was that? Mouse droppings? Please, not rat droppings! Were they old, from some earlier infestation, or were they fresh? I had no idea how to find out, and God knows I wasn’t going to touch them! I would just put some traps in the attic the next time I had to venture up here. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to crawl around in the dark, cramped, airless space again until it was time to put the Christmas decorations away.
I reached the spot that I guessed was over Rate’s room and aimed the light onto the underside of the roof. There was no insulation on this part of the root, so I was able to clearly inspect the rafters. The Segretto house was more than a hundred years old, but it had been constructed with strong, solid materials. The boards, although gray with age, still appeared to be in good condition.
Until my flashlight beam landed on a spot that wasn’t. I could see that the water had been seeping between the two rafters for a long time, because the wood was dark, discolored, and slightly moldy When I pointed the light down, the pink insulation was turning black
Although I was becoming quite proficient in DIY home repair projects, fixing a leaking roof on an old Victorian house in the middle of winter was almost certainly beyond my skill set. I leaned closer to examine the warped boards a little closer. There was probably a problem with the shingles on the roof. Maybe some had blown off in the last summer storm, when we had considerable wind damage in the neighborhood.
As I leaned in, I blindly put my hand against one of the supports. Instead of finding hard, cold, rough wood, I touched something soft and warm, and it moved under my hand. I screamed, and the thing squeaked like a mouse. Out it was not a mouse, as it then flew out, darting around my head in a flurry of confusion
It was a bat
Chapter 12
In my panic i stepped backward, slipped off the joist, and fell hard, on my butt, into the insulation between two beams, while my flashlight flew off somewhere, landing in the insulation
For a second, I thought it was okay. It seemed that the sheet rock that covered the ceiling of the room below me was going to hold my weight.
But I was wrong. With a sickening crack, the thin material split under me. I tried to catch myself, but instead of grabbing the boards, I somehow only managed to grab fistfuls of insulation, and I crashed through the ceiling.
By some providence, as I braced to hit the hard floor, I instead bounced onto the mattress of Raphael’s childhood bed, in a cloud of dust, insulation, and God–help me, what I now knew was bat poop! Although the mattress had cushioned my fall, it still knocked the wind out of me. I lay there in the dark, panting for breath, staring up at a Beth–sized hole in the ceiling, which was eerily slightly illuminated by my lost flashlight.
It kind of reminded me of a gaping hole into hell.
I didn’t know whether to cry, or to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all. Hiring a handyman to fix a few shingles on the roof was nothing compared to the mess that I’d just made. Where on earth was I going to come up with the money to fix the ceiling now?
I heard the sound of small feet pounding up the stairs, and the door flew open, letting light spill in from the hallway Lucy flipped on the lights and gaped at me. “Mommy? What are you doing in Uncle Rafe’s bed?”
That was it. I started to laugh hysterically, even as tears were rolling down my cheeks. Lucy walked into the room, her mouth sagging open as she stared at the hole in the ceiling, and the debris on the bed. I couldn’t even catch my breath long enough to tell her about the leak in the roof, and the bat in the attic that had caused me to come crashing through the ceiling.
“Are you hurt? Should I call 9117”
“No Peanut. I’m fine! I’m fine. I gasped. I started to brush myself off and realized that I probably wasn’t fine. I had fallen into fiberglass insulation, and I probably had it all over my skin. “But I’ve got to get in the shower right away. Listen, don’t touch that pink stuff, it’s very bad for your skin.” I rolled off the bed and stood shakily
My flashlight was still up there.
Screw it, it could just stay up there forever.
