To Build a Home

24 | The Cottage

The drive to the cottage was silent. The canopy of the state forest trees towering above us cloaked the truck in a dark green shadow as we drove down the long, winding road early in the morning. The blue sky occasionally peeked through the branches and the leaves, like tiny holes poked in the lid of a mason jar full of lightning bugs, the warm August sun vanishing just as quickly as it appeared.

Darren focused on the road in front of him, his hands gripping the steering wheel, anticipating the next sharp curve. It was his idea to have me assist with the cottage job that day. It would be a welcomed distraction, he had said. But it wasn't far enough––I wanted to get as far away from Pennsylvania as I could. The scenic drive would take a little over an hour on the state highway stretching more than 75 miles to a small town called Rockhill. There was a quaint downtown, but it was mostly miles and miles of open fields, woods, and mountains with the occasional private property. The only thing I knew about Rockhill was that it had a trolley museum, as if I needed more trollies in my life.

The cottage sat on an acre of land nestled between two patches of woods. Phil and Darren had purchased it about a month before he died when they were hoping to expand the Baker Brothers business. The plan was to flip properties in neighboring counties to grow their reputation and eventually establish small teams of contractors in those areas, kind of like a franchise, but for home improvement. The process had been slow and they didn't get a chance to start working on it before Phil died.

"Wait until you see it," Darren said from the driver's seat. I turned from my view of the trees speeding past my window like a rewinding movie to look at him as he spoke. "The building isn't that much to look at now, but the land is unbelievable."

We arrived at the cottage around nine in the morning. The crew was already on site. They were each sitting in their trucks scattered across the front yard, the driver and passenger doors wide open like wings, their boots dangling out of the sides as they drank their thermoses of coffee. Darren introduced me. There were six men in ripped faded denim with tool belts strapped around their waists, weighing them down like iron balls, and a woman.

Sadie was around my age, also in faded denim with an equally large tool belt, though she was much shorter than everyone else. Her dark hair was pulled back into a low ponytail, showcasing the freckles under her eyes and her bushy eyebrows. Her t-shirt was loose and had a picture of a cartoon woman with large breasts straddling a life-size bottle bursting with champagne foam. Instead of shaking my hand, she looked right past me and walked between the guys and Darren. She told him she wanted to be on the exterior crew.

"Sadie, I need you on demo today," he said.

She stormed off into the house and the other guys laughed amongst themselves. They were all assigned their various responsibilities in a huddle on the front lawn and then they dispersed to their sections of the property, a chorus of buzzing and sawing and hammering and drilling erupted almost immediately. When I asked Darren why he hadn't assigned Sadie what she wanted, he said, "She has real anger issues. She'll tear the shit out of the place on demolition."

The inside of the cottage was a maze of rooms, small boxes with multiple doors. The ceilings were dropped low and the wallpaper was peeling. I walked through the kitchen, which had a gorgeous view of the back of the property, a neverending expanse of green, but it was framed by outdated counters and cabinets off their hinges. The appliances were removed, their shapes stained on the walls like ghosts, and put in the living room for some reason, the previous owners probably abandoning their efforts to take the fridge and the stove with them, too bulky and heavy to carry through the maze.

Darren tried giving me a tour, but we were often interrupted by someone from the crew asking a question or Darren intervening when he didn't like the way they were working. He also directed two guys who were carrying in supplies from his truck, showing them where to put everything. I ventured upstairs alone, the only part of the property that was peaceful and untouched.