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Cilla stood in her bedroo at the freshly painted walls while her father tapped the lid back on the open can of paint She watched the way the strong

"The trim’s not even up, and the floors still have to be done, and still, standing here gives htened fro look hi"

"It’s always good to have a fallback"

"You’ve damn near painted the entire house" She turned to him then She still couldn’t quite think what to make of that, or what to say to him "That’s saved me weeks of time Thanks doesn’t cover it"

"It does the job I’ve enjoyed it, on a lot of levels I’ve liked being part of this This transfor some of this one with you, well, it’sat hi she’d never done before She went to him first She pressed a kiss to his cheek, then wrapped her arht She felt his sigh against her "Do you remember the day we first saw each other here? I came to the back door, and you shared your lunch withfront veranda?"

"I reet here Too lect, too much time passed For the house, and for us" He eased her back, and she saith soave it a chance The house, and hter I’m so proud of you, Cilla"

When her own eyes flooded, she pressed her face to his shoulder "You said that to me, that you were proud, after the concert in DC, and once, earlier, when you came to the set of Our Family and watched me shoot a scene But this is the first tiave hi to know each other, through interior latex, eggshell finish"

"Why stop there? How about we go take a look at the exterior"

"You can’t paint the house The roo"

Lips pursed, he scanned the room "I think I passed the audition"

"Interiors It’s a three-story building A really big, three-story building Painting it’ll require standing on scaffolding and really tall ladders"

"I used to do hed as she rolled her eyes in a way he could only describe as daughterly "Maybe I didn’t, and o, but I have excellent balance"

She tried stern "Standing on scaffolding and really tall ladders in the dog-day heat of August"

"You don’t scare me"

Then simple practicality "It’s not a one-man job"

"True I’ll definitely need some help What color did you have in ently steamrolled "Listen, the old paint needs to be scraped where it’s peeled, and-"

"Details, details Let’s take a look Do you want it painted by Labor Day, or what?"

"Labor Day? It’s not even on the schedule until mid-September When it’s, hopefully, a little cooler The creho painted the barn-"

"Happy to ith them"

Coht you were kind of-no offense-a pushover"

His expression placid, he patted her cheek "No offense taken What about the trim, the verandas?"

She puffed out her cheeks, blew the breath out She saw it now Push-over, her ass He just ignored the argu "Okay, we’ll take a look at the sa about And once I decide, you can work on the verandas, the shutters But you’re not hanging off scaffolding or cli up extension ladders"

He only smiled at her, then dropped his arie, and walked her downstairs

Though it wasn’t on her list-and she really wanted to get up to her office and check on the progress of her floors, see if Stan had finished the tile, start running the bedrooo deep, with this blue The gray in it settles it down a few notches, and white trim would set it off" She slapped soo quiet and traditional with this buff, use a white triht be better Softer"

"Pretty and subdued"

"Or I could go with thisit warnified but warm"

She stepped back, cocked her head to one side, then the other "I thought about yellows, too Soh it doesn’t pop out of the ground like a big daffodil Maybe it should wait Maybe it should just wait" She gnawed on her lip "Until"

"I’ve seen youthat has to do with this house, with the grounds Why are you having such a hard time with this?"

"It’s what everyone will see Every time they drive by on the road A lot of them will slon, point it out ’That’s Janet Hardy’s house’" Setting down the brush, Cilla wiped her hands on her work shorts "It’s just paint, it’s just color, but it matters what people see when they drive by on the road, and think of her"

He laid a hand on her shoulder "What do you want them to see when they drive by here?"

"That she was a real person, not just an ie in an old movie, or a voice on a CD or old record She was a real person, who felt and ate, who laughed and worked Who lived a life And she was happy here, at least for a while Happy enough she didn’t let it go She held on, so I could come here, and have a life here"

She let out an eh "And that’s a hell of a lot to expect froo back into therapy"

"Stop" He gave her shoulder a quick shake "Of course itas mundane as paint for a lot less important reasons This house, this place, was hers More, it was so she valued So she needed It’s been passed to you It should et that That matters more now than it did when I started You pick"

He dropped his hand, actually stepped back "Cilla"

"Please I’d really like this to be your choice The McGowan choice People will think of her when they pass on the road But when I walk the grounds or drive in after a long day, I’ll think of her, and of you I’ll think of how you came here as a little boy, and chased chickens You pick, Dad"

"The second blue The warnified blue"

She hooked her ar paint "I think it’s going to be perfect"

WHEN FORD WALKED over late in the day, he saw Gavin on the veranda, scraping the paint on the front of the house

"How’re you doing, Mr McGowan?"

"Slow but sure Cilla’s inside soht a house"

"Is that so?" Gavin stopped, frowned "You’re ht this, well, this toxic dump that Cilla says she can fix up To flip The seller just accepted my offer I feel a little sick, and can’t decide if it’s because I’to have two es I think I should probably sit down"

"Pick up that scraper, give me a hand with this It’ll calm you down"

Ford eyed the scraper dubiously "Tools and I have a long-standing agreeood of mankind"

"It’s a scraper, Ford, not a chain saw You scrape ice off your windshield in the winter, don’t you?"

"When Ihome until it thaws" But Ford picked up the spare scraper and tried to apply the process of scraping ice fro paint off the side of a house "I’ to be forty"

"Did we just time-travel? You can’t be more than thirty"

"Thirty-one I have less than a decade until I’ for the SATs"

Gavin’s lips twitched as he continued to scrape "It gets worse Every year goes faster"

"Thanks," Ford said bitterly "That’s just what I needed to hear I was going to take my time, but how can you when there isn’t as , he waved the scraper, and nearly put it through the"But if you’re ready, and she’s not, what the hell are you supposed to do about that?"

"Keep scraping"

Ford scraped-the paint and his knuckles "Crap As a metaphor for life, that sucks"

Cilla ca his sore knuckles and scowling "What are you doing?"

"I’ paint and a few layers of skin, and your father’s philosophizing "

"Let me see" She took Ford’s hand, studied the knuckles "You’ll live"

"I have to I’ave his sore fingers a quick squeeze

"Sorry They accepted your offer?"

"Yeah I have to go into the bank to to hyperventilate," he decided "I need a bag to breathe into"

"Noveave hi scoas both sour and weak "I’o into debt The kind that hasa few est of the five senses? I keep having flashes of how that place smells"

"Put that down before you really hurt yourself" She took the scraper out of his hand, set it on theledge "And coave her father a quick wink, then drew Ford into the house

"Do you remember what the kitchen looked like in here when you first saw it?"

"Yeah"

"Ugly, dingy, daed floors, cracked plaster, bare bulbs Got that picture in your head?"

"I got it"

"Close your eyes"

"Cilla"

"Seriously, close them, and keep that picture in there"

He shook his head but obliged her, and let her lead him back "Noant you to tell h, no qualifying Just open your eyes and tellroohtly toasted bread And floors, big squares of tile-a lot of honey tones on crea, unframed- untrimmed-s that open it up to a patio with a blue ureen gone lush And the ainst the sky I see Cilla’s vision"

He started to step forward, but she tugged him back "No, don’t walk on the tiles yet Stan only finished the grout an hour ago"

"We can do this"

"We absolutely can It takes planning, effort, a willingness to find a way around unexpected probleoal We’ll turn that place around, Ford, and e do, we’ll have so we can both be proud of"

He turned to her, kissed her forehead "Okay Okay I’ve got so to do"

She walked out with hi to her father and kept walking

"Well, where’s he going? He said he was going to do "

Gavin smiled to hiood to know his daughter had found her place, her purpose, had found a ood to know she was out of reach of the man who’d wished her harm

THE NEXT MORNING, Cilla walked over froround by the left front tire, another doll lay facedown, a short-handled paring knife stabbed into its back

"You should’ve come back for me Damn it, Cilla" Ford paced down the drive, then back to where she sat on the steps of the veranda "What if he-she-whoever-had still been here?"