At Home on Ladybug Farm - Donna Ball [87]
The massive skeleton of the barn, black and charred against the pewter sky, looked like something out of a horror movie, a gothic remnant of some dark and tragic past. Tendrils of smoke still curled from beams that had collapsed on the ground. The arched ribs stood naked against the sky and the tin roof was scorched and buckled. The rock foundation, six feet high, protected nothing but a pile of smoldering debris, and from the center of it all came a high-pitched squealing, hissing sound as water sank into the hot timbers and evaporated into steam.
After a time Cici realized that Lindsay, dressed in her terry robe and sneakers, was standing beside her. She gratefully accepted a cup of coffee, and held it in both hands to warm them.
“Well,” Lindsay said quietly. “This certainly puts things into perspective, doesn’t it?”
Cici nodded slowly. “If it had spread to the house . . .”
“But it didn’t.” Bridget had come up quietly behind them, already dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, her hair tied back, ready for work. But a look at her face revealed that she had not yet been to bed. “And thank God none of the animals were inside. If this had happened in the winter, or even last month, when we were keeping the sheep in at night . . .” She buried her expression with a sip of coffee, unable to finish the thought.
“There’s blessings in everything.” Ida Mae, too, was dressed for the day in sturdy work boots and a cotton dress over her twill pants, the whole topped with a fleece sweatshirt. She carried the coffeepot wrapped in a towel, and topped off the ladies’ cups as she spoke. “If you all had finished that chicken coop like you was supposed to, them baby chicks woulda smothered to death from the smoke. I reckon I’ll be putting up with sawdust and chicken crap all over the conservatory for a while longer. Miss Emily must be turning in her grave.”
Cici’s voice was heavy with despair and disbelief. “How in the world are we supposed to build a barn when we can’t even build a chicken coop?”
The screen door closed and Lori crossed the lawn in a pink sleep shirt printed with a big-eyed kitten and matching capri leggings, stepping carefully around the puddles in her bare feet. Her hair was a mass of tangled coppery curls, and her face was pale and puffy from lack of sleep. She walked up to her mother and put her head on her shoulder, and Cici held her close. Noah followed in a moment, also in bare feet, but wearing jeans and the same wrinkled, soot-smudged T-shirt he had worn the night before. He paused to offer Bambi a carrot he had brought from the kitchen, and then he stood a little outside the circle, surveying the wreck of the barn in the same glum fashion as the others.
Lori asked, “Did they ever figure out what started it?”
Cici shook her head. “The fire marshal said he couldn’t officially say until he wrote up his report. The best theory was that a spark from the power tools we were using yesterday started smoldering in the hay. But there were paint cans stored here, and gasoline for the lawn mower, and those hundred-year-old timbers . . .”
“They weren’t a hundred years old.”
Everyone looked at Ida Mae. “The barn wasn’t even built until the sixties sometime.”
“Which explains why it wasn’t in the mural.”
“Well, it sure is a mess now,” Noah said.
Bridget made an obvious effort to sound positive. “At least we have insurance.”
Cici glanced at her. “About that . . .”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you kidding me? We do have insurance—don’t we?”
Cici held up a hand to stop the onslaught. “Yes, of course we have insurance. But if you recall, we decided not to insure the outbuildings separately—they were all so old,