Chapter 40: Nieces and Aunt Emma

Until now, not much has been said about the urgent construction project to build Sophia’s family Florida house. It was constructed hastily on a site chosen by one criterion. Readiness. A site already prepared with a couple of existing concrete slab foundations which immediately advanced the project to the erection of walls stage. Very minor excavation and concrete work was necessary. Formerly, it was the site of a double tiered assembly of containers converted to dwellings. Those have relatively recently been moved and reintegrated into different composite structures as the owners chose. The unused site remains and is still located beside my horse trailer. Soon Sophia’s house will literally be my next, next door neighbor.

Immediately after the Dodge Travco motorhome was purchased, the idea to transport Sophia and her family to Florida became more real for us. This is happening and we aren’t ready to receive visitors. We realized we had better immediately begin construction of a place to house them. It needs to be completed before and habitable when they arrive. Time is short.

Between the two existing slabs, a trench was gouged leading towards a nearby shaded area. Concrete culvert were set into the trench and sloped away from the house site. A sump with a pump and a roofed, screened shed was built where the culverts end in that shady spot. At the house end, a raised plenum covered the terminus of the culvert. Cool air from the shaded area passes through the subterranean run of culvert, drawn into the house by large exhaust fans in the gables.

Design is deliberately kept as simple as it gets. One large room with neither bath nor kitchen. The erection of the four windowless outside walls involved all hands. Completed and braced square in a single day. Door and window openings are completely framed in advance but for now, remain sheathed over by plywood to make the structure weatherproof. When there is time and money available to install those windows and doors, a sawzall opens these up in very short time.

The building is twenty feet by thirty six feet with no internal load bearing partition walls. It’s divided by a single movable partition we initially set up centrally to define two equal eighteen by twenty foot rooms. One side for girls, and the other side for the boys.

It’s simple to readjust the partitions position and easy for very few people to manhandle the wall changing the room dimensions.

The covering roof is engineered separately as a free standing columned all steel carport. I was able to purchase it with short term financing offered by the seller, and it was professionally erected by the steel building company’s crew in only two days.

Sophia’s house is ready. Pretty it’s not. Livable? Eh, more or less, crude quarters that certainly can stand improvement. Hope Sophia doesn’t hate it. It’s a long drive back to return again to the left coast.

I haven’t previously mentioned much detail about Sophia’s children. In fact, I don’t know much, don’t really know them. When I left, escaped, ran away at age ten, little Tony, Sophia’s eldest, was only seven. Teresa was five, and her little sister um, Elena, that’s her name, Elena was barely three. My memory of her is dim, practically nonexistent. Really, all I remember is I saw her a few times. The toddler existed. That’s the extent of my early interaction with Elena. Mile and Rafe weren’t born yet. So, there’s really little I can tell.

Introduced to me at the truckstop restaurant where they waited to be rescued after their resources finally ran out, I can now put faces with the names of my nieces and nephews. Tony reminds me of my Uncle Tony, his dad. Teresa resembles my sister when she was younger. Sophia is fourteen years older than me and babysat me when I was a toddler. She is our parent’s first born. Mike and Rafe don’t resemble my sister in any feature I can see. Must take after their dads, whoever they be.

Now we return to Elena. She is the only one who spontaneously greeted me with affection. Threw herself into my arms, kissed me with a big smooch, and claimed my arm, leading me to sit beside her, leaning against me the entire time we remained in the restaurant. Bonded to me like an imprinted newly hatched baby chick, Elena promptly attached herself to me. She adores me. Why, I can’t imagine. Sophia stares at me with the same adoring look in her eyes. After five days of staring at the road, their eyes can be excused of understandably strangely staring. I don’t mind, it’s unimportant.

I’m flattered by Elena’s constant attention. She’s a very cute chick, fourteen years old, and completely willing to be adorable. Did I say cute? Her face is exquisitely beautiful. Maybe I’m just mesmerized by the shining intensity of her eyes which she keeps on me always.

My sister Sophia looks at me in exactly this same intense way, and it feels weird, unworthy, guilty. Loved! I don’t deserve such adoration.

Just as dawn was breaking, we arrived at camp. Enough people were up and about and wiling to lend a hand, the motorhome was soon unloaded. The cartons and furniture now safely carried inside Sophia’s new house, left the Travco empty and Tony and Cindy claimed it for their own living quarters. They parked under a shady oak in a semi private spot and went to bed made from the dinette.

When presented with the house, Sophia remarked it has potential but didn’t say she liked it. She did ask the partition be moved close to one end, a six foot wide storage for all the cardboard carton stacks. The furniture was quickly arranged about the large twenty by thirty space now available. Linens were stretched on the beds, and the beds were occupied. We saw none of them again until supper time.