A Year on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [113]
Cici eased herself forward and Ida Mae snatched a pillow from behind her head, pounding it with her fists. “And none of you’ve got jobs. Couldn’t help noticing. Sit up.” She replaced the pillow. “You got insurance?”
“Why?” asked Cici warily. “Are you going to sue me for ruining your fruitcakes?”
Ida Mae sniffed. “Your friend, Miss Priss, she don’t have none.”
Cici stared at her. “Bridget?” Ida Mae refused to call any of them by their proper names. Lindsay was Red, Cici was Miz C, and Bridget Miss Priss. None of them had yet determined whether this familiarity was a sign of contempt or respect.
“Can’t afford it,” Ida Mae informed her with a nod, “and her kids won’t help her out. Shoulda thought about that, I say, before you come out here and start climbing up on roofs.”
Cici didn’t even bother to correct the non sequitur. She was too stunned, and worried.
Ida Mae picked up the lunch tray. “You better go through your mail, too,” she advised over her shoulder, just before she opened the door. “There’s more in there than get well cards.”
When she was gone, Cici reached for the stack of envelopes on the table, wincing a little with the effort, and thumbed through them until she found the particular piece that Ida Mae must have been referring to.
“Oh, crap,” she said wearily, when she had read it.
It was a notice from the bank, reminding them that their loan was coming due and payable in full in less than three weeks.
In another couple of days, Cici was up and around, and feeling strong enough to face the damage in the sunroom. The three of them had to bundle up in coats and scarves to venture into the room, which, due to the many gaps and leaks around the plywood patches, was almost as cold as it was outside.
For a long time Cici just looked around. An entire wall of windows was either missing or shattered. The paint was scarred. Bark, sticks, and debris littered the floor, along with a dusting of snow that had blown in or drifted in through the six foot, plywood-patched hole in the roof. When Cici brushed the snow away with her foot, she saw jagged cracks running through the painstakingly restored tile.
“All that work,” Bridget said softly, and the compassion of regret was rich in her voice.
“One step forward, two steps back,” Lindsay agreed sadly. “It’s always something.”
And Cici said, “It’s going to cost a freaking fortune to replace those windows.”
Bridget touched her shoulder lightly. “Let’s get out of here. I’m freezing.”
But Cici didn’t move. She looked around, her face filled with disappointment and her posture defeated. “Look,” she said quietly at last, “I know you guys didn’t sign up for this.” A plume of frost wisped in the air as she blew out a breath. “I’m the one who said we could whip this place into shape in a year, I’m the one who did all the figuring, I’m the one who got your hopes up. Well, the year is almost over, we’re in so much debt I don’t know how we’re ever going to get out, and this place isn’t much closer to being fixed up than it was when we started. We’ve got a hole in the roof and a loan coming due, and it looks like I figured wrong. I’m sorry.”
“Cici, come on—”
“Cici, it’s not your fault—”
Cici shook her head, eyes squeezed tightly and briefly closed as though to block out their words. “No. Listen, just the other day I was telling Lori how, when we’re away from home and we get all caught up in the excitement of a new lifestyle, we sometimes forget who we are, and we make bad decisions.” She looked at each of them somberly. “Well, we all have a really big decision coming up, and I think it’s important that we take some time to remember who we are, and what we really want, before we make it. This last year—well, it’s been kind of a whirlwind, dealing with one thing right after the other, and we’ve been so caught up in all the new things that have been happening to us that, well, I’m not sure we’ve ever really stepped back to see the big picture. And the first thing we probably should take a long, hard look at is money. Things could