Page 89 of Moonshine Lullabies
“I know, right?” Cy demanded. “Gon’ ask Jessie-Lou what she wants to do about that.”
He made a tsking sound out the side of his mouth.
“Damn shame, I tell you. One of my kin, either my great grandpappy or my granddaddy built this place with his bare hands. Not sure why they would go on and cover it up like that.”
“Whoa.”
Jessie stopped short just inside the front door and peered around.
“Crazy, innit?” Cy asked.
“Look at these floors!” she exclaimed.
“We know!” Cy and I exclaimed at the same time and then laughed.
Jessie looked around. “What’re you thinkin’, big brother. Should we keep ‘em?”
“I was just fixin’ to ask you what you wanted to do.”
“Heck, I’d just as soon keep ‘em and get a nice area rug,” she said. “Maybe a runner up the hallway.”
“Well, that settles that, then.” He put his hands on his hips.
Jessie nodded.
“Kitchen’s untouched,” she said with relief.
“Ah, yeah.” Cy followed her in and she went out onto the back sun porch or whatever the damn thing was that held her craft spot.
“No replacing the windows?” she asked discouraged.
“Nah, not those ones…” Cy said, and one of the workers came up the hall and I nodded, distracted, and went over to head him off from interrupting their discussion about what to do with the sunroom area.
“Yeah, man, what’s up?”
It wasn’t good news. He was coming to talk about the bathroom subflooring, showing me where it was rotted and how the floor had too much bounce to it.
“Hey, Cy! Jess!” I called out because thiswouldneed their attention.
We ended up around the firepit in the backyard with beers discussing.
“Well, we have our choice, we can have ‘em fix the bathroom and can take on your spot in the back ourselves, or we can have ‘em deal with your spot and do the bathroom on our own later on and hope we don’t fall through the fuckin’ floor afore we can get to it – but we ain’t got the money to do both right this minute,” Cypress said.
Jess hung her head and let it bounce with her defeat.
“Fuck, it ain’t much of a damn choice, is it?” she asked. “Ineedmy space to work on these skulls. The work I been doin’ with Alina, I can’t get my online shop – it’s gettin’ crazy. I have to be able to work.”
Cy nodded. “Yeah, it sure is turnin’ into way more ‘n just a hobby, ain’t it.”
“You’re goddamn right there, buddy,” she declared.
“I’m also sick of bein’ a weekend parent to my own kid,” she said. “It’s stressin’ me out an’ I think Tate’s ready to lose his shit on our mamma.”
Cy took a contemptuous drink off his beer.
“Maybe somebody oughta lose their shit on Mamma. Might be good for her.”
Jess grinned and said, “You too, huh?”
