Scarlett Hopper's Arc

Chapter 27 of 33

The rain stopped in the night. Scarlett woke to a quiet house and four bodies packed into two small rooms. John was folded on the couch with his boots still on. Maranda had slept sitting up against the wall by the stove. Marcus was on the floor by the back door, his coat under his head. The cat sat on his chest. Scarlett stepped over him and put the kettle on. Her wrist ached. The fingers moved a little more today. She could hold a cup. She could not swing a hammer. One by one they woke. John stretched and hit his knee on the table. Maranda rubbed her neck and did not smile. Marcus sat up and the cat jumped down. "We can't keep this," Maranda said. "Four people. Two rooms. Someone's going to snap." "I framed two rooms," Marcus said. "They need walls. Beds. A door each." "Then finish them," Scarlett said. "Today." John looked up. "All three of us?" "All three. You know the frame. Marcus has the tools. Maranda can cut and hand." She flexed her bad hand on the counter. "I can't hold a nail. I can weed and water. I'll take the garden." No one argued. Marcus nodded once and pulled his boots tight. Maranda went for the saw. Scarlett fitted the black-and-pink mask over her face and stepped out. The wheelbarrow sat by the shed with the tool bag inside — trowels, shears, gloves, twine, the seed packets Maranda had left on the kitchen table days back. She pushed it down the row. The soil past the split rock was dark from the rain. The new sprouts had come up in thin green lines. She knelt left-handed and pulled weeds with her good hand. Duke lay at the end of the row with his tail sweeping the dirt. Every so often he lifted his head and showed her the ridge in her mind. Empty. Empty. Empty. Behind her the house rang with hammers. Steady strikes. Two hammers, then three. Marcus's voice, low. Maranda answering. John laughing once, short. By noon Scarlett had cleared two rows and filled the brass watering can from the trough barrel. She watered slow. The ash wind came at three and she pulled the mask tight and kept working in the gray light until the gusts eased. She walked back at dusk. The house had changed. Two doors hung in the new frames. A bed stood in the first room, rough but standing. Maranda was nailing a shelf into the second wall. Marcus was sanding a plank across two sawhorses. John was sweeping shavings out the door. "Beds tonight," Marcus said. "All four of us." Maranda set the hammer down and looked at Scarlett. "We needed our own walls." Scarlett leaned in the doorway. The tension in her chest had gone somewhere she could not name. "Then we have them."