Jessica #1
It had been almost twenty years since winning the state lottery and I was still being hounded by panhandlers, especially after my wife's death had briefly put my name back in the news. So I explained why to my kids, sold the house and vanished for six months before buying a piece of property I had had my eye on for several years. That was five years ago; five years before she walked into my life; a time where I was wandering at the edge of the forest of doubt wondering where the daze of youth had fled off to.
The property was seventy miles from where my wife and I had raised our family, from where I had lived half my life raising three kids. It was thirty acres of exalting excitement, imagination inducement, absolving anonymity. It was thirty acres square, still zoned agriculture.
The original farmhouse sat eight hundred feet back off a two lane highway that ran east/west. It was an older highway, one for the history books. The interstate twelve miles to the south had whittled the heavy traffic away for several years --that is until of late when crawling suburban creep began a migration of unwanted work-day rush hour traffic. The house was a two and a half story affair complete with a widows-walk up on its flat roof. There was a large walk around porch on its north and east facing fronts with the front door jutting out halfway down on the east side, facing north toward the road. It had eight large white columns running from one end of the porch to the other. The gentle sloping tin and tar porch roof extended out from the house a good ten feet. A swing hung on the far north west side of the porch, in front of a large, eight by eight, dining room window.
The house was really larger than I wanted or needed. The kitchen, facing south, was twenty-two by eighteen with a small bathroom between it and a twenty foot square bedroom with two eight foot windows facing south and one facing east. Standing in the kitchen, next to the door leading to the bathroom was a door leading to the basement with yet with another door next to it that opened to a quarter sawn spiral oak staircase leading up the second floor. Beyond the kitchen was the dining room with its large, north facing picture window. There was a fireplace on its west facing wall that was more decorative than useful. Turning right out of the dining room, you passed through one of two ten-by-ten, sliding-into-the-wall heavy oak paneled doors that welcomed you into the large living room. The living room had three windows that faced north in a half-hexagonal fashion.
I imagined that was were the annual Christmas tree always resided. There was only one other window in the living room and it was one of the smallest windows in the entire house. That window allowed the house occupant to view who it was knocking on the front door. The second ten foot in-the-wall door slid open to gain access to the circling stair case on your right and the foyer on your left. Upstairs were four nearly equal sized bedrooms at each corner of the house separated either by utility rooms, linen closets or the bathroom (complete with cast iron claw foot tube). Ascending the stair case, master bedroom immediately to your right, turning left was the hallway to the second bedroom, linen closet, third bedroom before curling around to the fourth bedroom and the door leading into the upstairs bathroom. Across from the forth bedroom was the door that lead up to the full attic which had one four by eight foot window in the middle of each side. There was a steep staircase that led up to the roof and the widow's walk. I had quickly found that to be great place to spend a summer night.
When I had first moved in, I slept in the ground floor bedroom before choosing to move up into the second story north/east facing bedroom. It had two windows facing north and two facing east. Gentle summer rains pelting on that tin roof porch sang to me a siren's songs of childhood memories as I fell off to sleep with all four windows opened wide,.
Though it had been built the 1800's, it was a good house and had been well taken care of by the original family who has passed it down through the years till there was no one to pass it down to. That is when it came to my attention. And estate sale had emptied the house of all its heritage, leaving a stark bare building demanding a lot of loving arm wax. I put a new coat of tar on the widow's walk and new boiler in the basement. Next came a thorough draining and cleaning of the cistern, along with the removal of the huge fuse box replaced with an up to date circuit board. Then came a wall hugging drainage system and ten yards of concrete poured over the dirt and clay basement floor. It took time but I had replenished the downstairs rooms with some period piece furniture from other estate sales, flee markets and newspaper ads. Pictures and mirrors and curtains had all been required as well. This had kept me more than a little busy for the first two years. Yet in all that while, something was missing.
Over a long cold winter, I had drawn up plans, found the appropriate contractors and set about raising a thirty by sixty ranch about three hundred feet southeast of the main house. It was designed to have earth bermed up over three sides with its cedar log front facing southeast on an angle away from the back of the original house. Running a line east from the farmhouse's south wall, the new structure stood at a forty-five degrees angle to the house.
After completion of all that construction, including a large unattached three car garage complete with utility shed and a second story woodshop, I started on yet another project. The original driveway drove straight in. That gave allowance for the house being viewed directly from the highway. I wanted my privacy. So I had the original drive plowed and sodded. I replaced it with serpentine brick pavement that entered from the highway further east than before ending in a big circle drive back behind the main house. In the middle of the circle was the old seventy-five foot deep open well covered by its original large limestone block pump house. It supplied fresh water for both houses. There was large apple tree, probably planted soon after the well had been dug, that remained in the circle of the drive. Standing between the main house and the new ranch, was a small wedge of wood consisting of two large burr oaks and one shagbark hickory. It was impossible for one house to spy on the other.
Thankfully, twenty of the thirty acres were equally wooded. Roughly three acres had been cleared for the buildings both old and new. Along the southern most rim of the property, five acres were farmed. The new serpentine drive had taken another acre leaving one acre unaccounted for.
At first it was my hope that one of the kids and their family would stay in the new house while visiting. In my way of thinking it would have made for a relaxing mini-getaway for their families without having grandpa's weird hours and mannerism stifling their own. However, busy with life, they rarely visited and never stayed for long. So I told them I was going to rent it out to help pay for some of the bills.
I had never owned a piece of property before which I intended in renting out. Still being outside the zone of development and factory work, I didn't know what to expect in the way of applicants. Farmhands needed for planting and harvest were always looking for a place but usually they didn't need something as nice as what was being offered or at the price being advertised. And though there was a small college in the neighboring town, I didn't really expect much response from there either.
So my third summer came and went without much fanfare. Fall was now in full bloom with it being hot one day then chilly the next, all tempered with some occasionally but much needed rain. I remember it being in the middle of the week in the middle of October when the gray Toyota van pulled slowly back behind the house. I had installed a sensor out at the entrance of my drive which rang an old gas station bell letting me know when someone ventured on to my property.
"Is this the place with a house for rent," the young blonde girl asked upon seeing me step out from the back door.
"That would be me. But not this big old house. It's the one over there," I said pointing down the lane.
