36
Because Ed’s floor project had taken over most of the kitchen except for a narrow path between the refrigerator, sink, and stove, they ate their meals in the dining room. She was going to have to give up the dining room when Ed turned his attention to the rotted-out floor beneath it, but in the meantime she was determined to enjoy it. She had pinned up a bed sheet to separate it from the living room, which was packed not only with its own furniture but also with the pieces destined for the den and the foyer when Ed was done with the bricks. The dining room was her sanctuary. She had brought it to such a fastidious level of completion that it looked like a little theater in which a nightly drama was staged. The china leaned against the back of the cabinet, the polished candlesticks stood sentinel on the breakfront, the crystals sparkled in the chandelier after a chemical bath, and the white field of the lace tablecloth suggested a pristine altar.
Ed took a seat, rivulets of sweat still running from his head. He dropped his drenched forearms on the table and wiped his brow with the napkin she’d folded neatly.
When the kitchen floor was finished, the new cabinets and countertops could be installed.
“I don’t know why you don’t let me bring a contractor in for the floors,” she said. “We have money for help.”
“I’m doing a fine job,” he said.
“I don’t want to live like this. We didn’t buy this house to live out of boxes. I want a real kitchen.”
They had some money to work with. After they’d paid the depreciation recapture tax (she regretted the low rents she’d charged the Orlandos all those years; the house had hardly generated “income” to speak of) and put 50 percent down on the new house, they’d pulled over forty thousand dollars out of the Jackson Heights house to make improvements with.
“You’ll have your precious kitchen,” Ed said. “The floor will be done soon enough.”
“We’re already two weeks from November, Ed. We could bring guys in and have this done in a day. They probably have machines that could do this in a couple of hours.”
He grabbed her by the wrist, leaned into her.
“One guy touches that floor—one single guy that’s not myself or Connell—and I’ve had it. Do you understand?”
She wrested herself free. “Have it your way,” she said bitterly, rubbing at her wrist. “But don’t expect any help from that boy. You’re going to be the hero on this, be the hero. He’s not helping you. He has too much work at school.”
“I don’t need his help.”
She could almost taste the disgust she felt. A curd of sarcasm gathered in her mouth.
“Good,” she said. “This is just beautiful. This is everything I dreamed it would be.”