Free The House at Royal Oak by Carol Eron Rizzoli Page A

any day now, and the shed foundation was cracked and sinking as well. He wouldn’t install the new equipment over it if it was his house, but, hey, our choice.
    Hugo paid the penalty fees and dipped into his small retirement savings. The contractor returned to build the new shed. To save money Hugo would install the floor and interior walls while the new well was being drilled.
    It was a perfect, early September day. The workers, usually on the job by seven, at latest by nine if they had to pick up supplies or check on someone else’s job, were nowhere in sight. We assumed it was another no-show day. These were an exasperation but Hugo never phoned them unless there were two in a row, which meant they were sandwiching in another job and if you didn’t call them on it two days would lead to three, four, a week or more.
    After painting primer on some siding to save the work crew time, Hugo went inside to make more coffee and switched on the TV. He called me over as the second plane hit the World Trade Center.
    Fifteen minutes later the phone rang. The contractor wanted to let us know the crew was on its way, they were running late because of problems at another site. This was a first, consideration spurred by the stunning calamity.
    In an hour they arrived and Hugo went outside. The contractor’s sons, his work crew, stood in a tight, silent groupstaring at the ground. The contractor and Hugo exchanged a few words. After a few more minutes the contractor signaled the end of the impromptu mourning. “I say we nuke ’em.” As if on cue everyone strapped on toolbelts, climbed ladders, and got to work.
    Four months later George and his helpers finished installing the brand-new bathrooms. The combination of old and new, original floors and windows, along with quietly new fixtures and white brass, came together better than I had hoped, a pleasant surprise. Also in their places, glinting importantly and expensively, were the new hot water heater, the new well tank, and the new furnace—all in the new shed.
    George himself arrived to supervise the first firing of the furnace, now attached to the old pipes and old radiators, which no longer tipped so badly because the repair of the damaged floor joists more or less leveled the floors. The January day was unusually cold and he found Hugo in a parka, cap, and gloves, suspended high on a makeshift scaffolding, scraping the two-story ceiling in the secret backstairs.
    George walked back and forth in the upstairs hall, taking in Hugo at every pass as he checked the antiquated system of pipes and radiators. While his helper and I rushed up and down the stairs to make sure everything held, he fired the furnace. Soon the all-important flow of hot water into pipes and radiators resounded softly through the house. The old pipes, and everything else, held. The house started to warm up.
    We shook hands and he drove off. He didn’t want payment; he’d send a bill. Hugo had paid $2,000 up front for supplies, but after that George did not want more payments.Worrisome as hell, but we didn’t know what to do about it.
    Six weeks later his bill for the balance of the work came. It was February again, one year after the place had become ours. Taking a work break around four in the afternoon, we walked down to the village post office, by now a weekly ritual, to see if the bill was there.
    â€œIf it’s here, don’t tell me,” I said, suddenly weary. For the first time outside the office, I felt a sharp pain starting along my right temple and running down into the back of my neck, a migraine. Hugo unlocked the mailbox.
    â€œLet’s get this over with.” He fumbled with the mailbox key and pulled out a small yellow envelope, hand addressed. That was it: I saw George’s name in small block letters in the upper corner.
    Hugo ripped it open and his eyes fixed on the page. We’d been up and down ladders all day, patching plaster and, in