Done in Fifteen Years novel · Chapter 17 of 32
Chapter 17: Nothing to Lose
"Darrell's attorney," I said.
"Gray suit. Briefcase." Deke tightened a screw in the porch light. "Says I abandoned a lawful service and interfered with another server. Says I'm living with the respondent."
"You live in a trailer."
"I'll be sure to tell the review board."
"Deke."
"It's pending. They'll hold a hearing in a few months." He came down the ladder and flipped the switch, and the porch light came on for the first time since I'd been there. "There. Something works."
"That was your whole living."
"It was a job." He shrugged. "I've had worse jobs. I've had worse bosses than a review board."
"You're laughing."
"What else am I going to do? Cry in front of Vernie? She'd charge me."
He was laughing.
I watched him all evening, waiting for it to crack.
It didn't.
Friday morning he got up before me.
I came down at four and there were already lights on behind the barn.
He'd dragged a stack of old corrugated tin out of the weeds and set four cedar posts in the ground around the propane smoker.
"What's this?"
"Shed," he said. "That smoker's sitting in the sun. Rain comes in August, you'll be cooking in a lake."
"You don't have to build me a shed."
"I'm unemployed, Raylene. I have to build somebody something."
He built it all day.
The twins held the tin while he screwed it down.
Macey handed up screws and told him which ones were crooked.
The night pitman stood under it at three o'clock, looked up and nodded once, which was the most anybody ever got from him.
By sundown there was a tin roof over my second pit, with a light bulb hanging from a wire.
Deke stood under it covered in sawdust and rust with a sunburn on the back of his neck.
He looked happier than I'd ever seen him.
That was when I knew.
He'd lost the only thing he had that was his, for me, and he'd gone and built me something to keep the rain off.
Nobody had ever built me anything.
I went upstairs and took a shower in the band room's terrible little stall.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–16 of Done in Fifteen Years are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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