The afternoon that Erica Castle drove into Eugene, Oregon,
she was elated, excited at the thought that she would
steep in her own house that night. Weeks earlier an
attorney had called to inform her that she had inherited
her grandmother's property; shehad become a home owner.
She had never met her grandmother, had never before been
farther west than Indiana, but her mother had talked about
the fine old mansion many times in the distant past, and
now it was hers, Erica's.
She drove with care, admiring the well-kept houses, the
neat lawns and lovely landscaping with flowers everywhere.
After grimy industrial Cleveland, everything here looked
fresh and scrubbed, sparkling dean. It was an affluent
neighborhood, not superrich, but comfortable. No more
dingy apartments, inner-city filth, just her own house in
a nice neighborhood where flowers bloomed.
Driving slower and slower, she watched the house numbers,
then came to a stop, backed up, pulled into a driveway and
braked hard, aghast the spectacle before her. The yard had
gone to weeds, knee-high or higher, and a tangle of
blackberry brambles was ten feet high. There was trash
strewn in the driveway, beer bottles, an oil can, a broken
chair. . . The two-story house had peeling paint and bare
wood in places. There was a broken window held together
with duct tape, a broken banister on the front porch.
She felt as if for weeks she had been floating, as buoyant
as a dandelion seed in a breeze, only to have a giant hand
reach out now and crush her back to earth. Moving with
leaden legs she got out of her old station wagon and
approached the front of the house, forced herself up the
three steps to the porch, across it to the door.
It was worse on the inside. The smell was so bad that she
gagged and took a step back, then hurried through a
hallway to the rear of the house and opened a door. Trash
was everywhere, more beer cans, wine bottles, liquor
bottles, pizza boxes, junk furniture, piles of newspapers,
a foam mat on the floor. . .
She didn't go up stairs and didn't linger inside the house
longer than it took for a hurried glance. Junk. Nothing
but junk. Then she stood on the back porch and regarded
the rear of the property; more blackberries, more weeds,
more trash. The brambles had nearly covered a small garage.
She fought tears and made her clenched fists relax. "All
right," she said in a low voice. "So there's no free
lunch."
The house could be cleaned up, painted, the yard cleaned
and made neat. Then she would sell it. After cashing out
her pension, she had eleven thousand dollars. If she had
to use part of it to get the house ready for a sale, so be
it.
The giant hand that had crushed her was rubbing her nose
in the dirt, she thought grimly the following day, when
the attorney informed her that there was also a property
tax hen of eight thousand dollars. He put her in touch
with a Realtor, Mrs. Maryhill, who walked through the
house with Erica and pointed out what needed doing before
putting the house on the market.
"See those water stains? Needs a roof. And probably the
wiring needs an overhaul. . . Maybe there's dry rot in
that bathroom. Hard to tell with so much mold. . . Three
windows need replacing. . . That water heater's twenty-
five years old, has to be replaced. . . All the oak
flooring needs to be refinished. What a shame to let it go
like that."
Then, on the rear porch, she said, "I'll tell you
straight, Ms. Castle. You sell it as is, and maybe you can
get fifty thousand, maybe not even that. And it might take
months or even years. See, no Realtor is going to want to
show it. Put in ten, twelve thousand, bring it up to par
with the neighborhood and you can get $150 thousand to
$185 for it. It's really a very nice old structure, solid,
good wood, but gone to pot now. Depending on how it's
finished, how it appears, maybe you'd get up to two
hundred. But it's going to take a lot of work first."
Two weeks later Mrs. Maryhill dropped by again. "Just in
the neighborhood, she said, looking all around. "My, my,
you've been busy, haven't you? You're doing it all
yourself?"
"So far. I thought I'd see how much I could manage before
I yell for help."
The electricity was on; the kitchen and the downstairs
bedroom were scrubbed and usable and just needed
repainting; the odors in the house now were of Lysol and
bleach, trisodium phosphate, ammonia and Pine Sol. Junk
was high in the driveway, with more added daily. The heap
looked like a rising volcano of obsidian; some of the
trash bags even steamed in the sun.
To Erica's surprise the house she was unearthing was very
nice, as Mrs. Maryhill had said earlier. The first floor
had four spacious rooms and a small pantry; the upper
apartment had four rooms; and the basement was dry with a
good concrete floor.
"Eventually," the Realtor said "you'll have to hire help.
If you decide to take out a mortgage, hold off as long as
possible. Get the house in the best shape you can before
anyone comes to inspect it. Do you plan to get a job?"
"I hadn't given it any thought yet," Erica said. She
suspected that Mrs. Maryhill had assessed her financial
position quite accurately. No one did the kind of cleaning
Erica had been doing if they had a tidy fortune stashed
away.
"Well, consider it," Mrs. Maryhill said. "Banks like to
think their clients can repay a loan. They're funny that
way." She smiled widely. "And something else you might
consider," she said, "is doing some volunteer work for the
time being. A few hours a week, at least. You'd meet local
people who may be willing to give references, you see. You
know the rehab chic over on Country Club Road? That would
be a good place for you. Close enough to walk to, but more
important, you'd meet a good clientele, some of the
patients, doctors, therapists, the sort of people banks
adore for references."
"The only thing I'm qualified to do is teach, Erica
said. "Fifteen years of experience. But I suppose I could
work in a kitchen, something like that."
Mrs. Maryhill shook her head. "No, no. You want to meet
people. You have a lovely voice. Volunteer to read to the
patients."
All afternoon and into the night Erica considered both
suggestions. Regardless of her years of experience, she
knew she would not be qualified to teach full-time here.
For that she would need Oregon certification, which would
take time, and possibly require some classes, and she had
no intention of going that route. She was truly burned
out, she admitted, but perhaps she could get a temporary
certificate and sip up as a substitute. Most school
districts had a number of substitutes who worked all
hours, even full-time, but without the perks: no medical
insurance, no pension, no paid holidays.
Besides, it would be temporary. As soon as she got a loan,
and finished fixing up the house, she would sell it. She
didn't want a house and a job; she wanted some money for
the first time in her life. Sell it, take a long vacation,
buy a new car. . . As she scrubbed away grime accumulated
over many years, she came to appreciate the fine woodwork,
the lovely cabinets, good cedar-lined closets, lead-glass-
fronted bookcases in the living room. Two hundred
thousand, she told herself. She could endure anything,
even teaching fifth grade, for that kind of payback.
More to the point, she would need an income. First she had
to spruce herself up, she decided, fingering her hair,
lank and mousy brown. She was forty years old and felt
fifty, and suspected she looked it. Start with the hair,
she told herself; she could not volunteer for anything,
much less apply for a teaching position looking like a
charwoman.
The next week she put in her application with the school
district and then drove to the Kelso-McIvey Rehabilitation
Clinic, which turned out to be four blocks from her house.
There was a large parking lot in front of the two-story
building, a high hedge and a covered walk from a wide
drive. A big van under the cover had a mechanism lowering
a patient in a wheelchair.
Erica passed it and entered the building, which was not at
all institutional. Baskets held potted plants and more
plants in ceramic pots were on the reception desk. A teddy
bear leaned against a pot with a basket of peppermints
nearby. A pretty, blond young woman at the reception desk
greeted her and, on hearing her name, said, "Mrs. Boardman
will be free in a minute or two. She's expecting you. You
want to sit over there and wait? I'll tell her you're
here." She wore a name tag: Annie. She motioned toward a
waiting room where a few other people were seated, and
then smiled at the patient an attendant was wheeling in.
"Mrs. Daniels! How nice to see you. How's it going? You
look wonderful!"
Erica was not kept waiting long. Annie beckoned her and
led the way down a brightly lit corridor, chatting as she
walked. "Boy, can they use volunteers here. Half the
people you see working are volunteers, in fact."
"Well, I won't have a lot of free time," Erica said.
"Ten minutes makes a difference," Annie said. "Here we
are."
She tapped on a door, opened it and moved aside for Erica
to enter. A tall, lean woman rose from her desk as they
entered. She looked to be sixty and was dressed in chinos
and a T-shirt. Her hair was gray, straight and very short,
almost too severe, but bright blue earrings and a matching
necklace softened her appearance, and her snide was warm
and friendly as she came around the desk to take Erica's
hand.
"Ms. Castle, how do you do? I'm Naomi Boardman. Thanks,
Annie. Will you be around for a bit?"
"Until four-thirty. I'll be at the front desk until Bernie
gets back from the dentist. That should be any minute
now." She smiled at Erica and left.
Then, seated in two visitors' chairs, Naomi Boardman and
Erica talked. It was not a real interview, Erica came to
realize very fast. Things had already been decided. Naomi
made it clear that they wanted her.
"When I brought it up with Darren -- he's our head
physical therapist -- we agreed that it's a marvelous
idea, to have someone read to the patients. They work so
hard, harder than any of the staff, and they are exhausted
by the end of the day. This would be relaxing, and even
comforting, we believe."
The patients varied in age, she said, from young children
to octogenarians, suffering the effects of bicycle
accidents, strokes, congenital birth defects, fire, brain
tumors -- all kinds of trauma. Although most of them were
outpatients, there was also a fifteen-bed hospital on the
upper floor. Sometimes it was said, they had eleven
patients up there.
Feeling a growing disquietude, Erica asked, "But who would
I be reading to? What age group? How many?"
"Well, we won't know that until you begin. Maybe four,
maybe ten. All ages. And anything you would find suitable
for your fifth grade classes would work find." She smiled
at Erica. "You'll have a lot of latitude It won't be so
much what you read, you see, as the fact that you will be
reading to them. And you have such a nice voice."
It was arranged. She would begin on Wednesday, starting at
five in the evening. Naomi hesitated over the hour. It was
best for the patients because some of them were so fretful
by them, restless and exhausted, but it might be hard for
Erica. Not at all, Erica assured her. Then Naomi called
Annie back and asked her to show Erica the
facility. "Welcome to the Kelso-McIvey Rehabilitation
Center," Naomi said.
"I've never heard anyone call it that," Annie confided, as
she started the tour. "It's just the rehab clinic. Down
that way are the therapy rooms. We won't go in while
they're being used. This way to the garden. Darren thinks
it's a good idea to get people out in the open as much as
possible."
Erica saw little of the clinic that day, but later she
came to appreciate the many ways the curse of institution
had been obliterated. One wall held children' art,
colorful, fanciful, honest. Another displayed whimsical
figures from Disney or Dr. Suess. Dorothy with her
steadfast companions on the yellow brick road.
Superheroes. Christopher Robin and Pooh. There was a
ceiling-to-floor wall of greeting cards :Valentine's Day,
Christmas cards, birthday cards, thank-you cards. There
were plants throughout, in baskets, brass planters,
hanging from baskets, on wall brackets. The visitors'
waiting room had a game table, large-screen television,
current magazines, a jigsaw puzzle in progress on a table.
She laughed later when she followed arrows from the
children's ward to the upper lounge. The arrows began to
go this way and that, a drunkard's walk trail, and then
climbed a wall, ending abruptly. A splotch on the floor
was the start of the arrows from there, more or less
steady to the lounge. She learned that Naomi had been the
decorator, and it all worked delightfully.
The offices were like offices everywhere with the usual
furnishings, but when she viewed the therapy rooms later,
she caught in her breath. Medieval torture chambers, she
thought, mortify the flesh and save the soul. But here the
plan was to save the body. Tables with straps dangling,
holding curiously shaped brackets, cups straps. A device
that appeared to be designed to support body parts --
let's arms, torsos. Several treadmills, walkways with
rails, one with a contraption that was like a rescue seat
she had seen on television hauling a person from a sinking
ship. A small swimming pool in a room so hot and humid it
was like a steam bath. A mechanism there apparently could
lift a patient and lower him or he into the water, then
fish the patient out again.
On that first day, she caught glimpses only as she was
escorted to the garden, screened in on three sides by
shrubbery. It was laid out in such a way, Annie explained
that each section of the path was a particular length, a
quarter of a mile, a third of a mile, and eighth. The
whole thing, if you covered every path, zigzagging around,
would be two miles, with a waterfall at one end and steps
going up to it on both sides. There was a koi pond up
there, with a couple of benches, a nice place to relax and
watch the fish. Apparently it was simply decorative, but
that was deceptive, she said; Darren knew that one of the
hardest tasks some patients encountered was going up and
down steps, Everything had been laid out by Darren, she
said, and a landscape company had planted and maintained
it.