Chapter 16: The Open House

On Saturday I opened the barn doors at ten and propped them with two sawhorses.

Evan had made the signs, and Tom had hung them on the road.

WENDT RESTORATION OPEN HOUSE. COME SEE THE WORK.

By noon there were forty people on the gravel.

Customers came, and neighbors, and the woman in the green cardigan from the shower chat, who brought a pie.

I stood by the cradle bench and showed them chairs.

I showed them a dresser I had stripped down to bare pine, and a pie safe, and a church pew waiting for its new seat.

"Is it true the barn's for sale?" asked a man from the next farm.

"No," I said. "It isn't."

"The sign said it was."

"The sign was put up by people who don't own it. I have the deed, if you want to read it."

I did have the deed.

It was in a plastic sleeve on the bench, next to my mother's will.

People read it, and nodded, and passed it along.

At half past one a white SUV turned in off the road and parked across the end of the gravel.

Diane got out in a camel coat and sunglasses.

A man in a grey suit got out of the other side with a leather folder.

She smiled at the crowd and waved.

"Helen!" she called. "What a turnout. I brought a client who'd love a look."