Changing Seasons. Summer III, part 2

Summer III Part 2 Annette and I had gone to look at what I’d be taking with me from the church to my new house (house!) once I moved in there.
“The bed, obviously,” said Annette. “It looks like it will take to bits easily. But you need a new mattress – that one’s ancient. We’ll give you one for a birthday present. We can move the fridge on the truck. But I think that cupboard will fall to pieces if you try and take it out.”
“My rug! The one that Patience made for me. I’ll decorate the bedroom round it.” “The cooker should move okay though, shouldn’t it? And it’s electric, so it’s only to plug in at the new house.”
“You’ve not got a lot to your name, have you,” Annette said a bit thoughtfully.
I wasn’t having her going all mournful on me. “It’s terribly sad,” I said, watching her face carefully to read her reaction. “I mean, all I’ve got is somewhere to live – and another home being offered to me as well – enough to eat and wear…” No, the physical-needs-being-met wasn’t going to work. I was going to have to go deeper.
“A way of earning money that I enjoy, some dreadful jokes from my co-workers…” Still not enough. I was going to have to go for honesty. Ouch. “Annette, I’ve got people who care about me. You’ve been like a sister to me. Old Tench…he’s given me his house. With his blessing. He said his Mary would have liked me. I’m safe here. And I’ve got friends. I’ve not had this since my mum died.” Then I got a bit tearful and Annette hugged me in the stone-cool silence of the building and then we both cried. Quite a lot really. Annette’s just had a baby, she’s allowed to Be All Emotional, but it’s not like me. “You know what?” Annette said, looking round the building after we’d mopped ourselves up.
“You’ve done a fantastic job on this place. It would be so nice if Mary could have her wedding here.”
Whoa! She’s jumping the gun a bit isn’t she? The poor mite’s barely a month old!
“This place needs work you can’t do yourself, though.”
“And money I don’t have.” Minnie’s Susie’s Dan had said that the tower was sound – at the moment – but there are bits missing. And if they don’t get replaced, it won’t stay sound.
“No. But we have the tractor now. I think we’ll start a Tower Fund next. I think we’ll get everyone in on this. Rafe’s a sculptor. Leo and Lachlan are both good with their hands. Very good. Marianna knows about stained glass. Between us all…” Between us all. I kind of liked that. I still felt muzzy-headed from crying so much, but I did like the sound of that. It comforted something deep within me. “Why does it hurt so much?” I’d decided to stay at the church – I didn’t want Blake seeing me all tear-stained, nor Marcus either – until I’d recovered.
“Being that honest, I mean?” Addie thought for a bit, looking for an analogy, a way of explaining it to me.
“Imagine the things that happened to you when you were young like nasty wounds.”
Yep, that made sense.
“And then they healed over on the surface and you look whole and together from the outside.”
Got that too. I’ve worked hard at looking whole and together from the outside.
“But there’s still bits of bad stuff in that wound – shrapnel, gravel, however you want to imagine it. And that needs to come out or it will just fester. But to get it out – you need to be opened up again. Only this time, it’s to heal you, not to hurt you.” “Oh! So that’s what you were doing with Lachlan when you made him tell you all the awful things Marianna’s old hag of an aunt said to him!” Yes, Lachlan and I compare notes occasionally. We’re the only people who can see Addie. It’s kind of a bond between us.
“Yes.” She beamed with pleasure. “He had to go back and get those things out and stop believing them.”
“You’re so wise! Thanks, Great Aunt Addie. And now I better go and get some cooking started. Before Marcus decides he’ll do it…” I made a salad. A large and good one – though with produce as fresh as this, it’s hard for the salad not to be good. And I ate it and listened to Marcus and Annette and Blake (it really appealed to his romantic streak. Streak? More like enormous slice!) getting very enthusiastic about Project Restore The Church.
And I agreed with Annette that I should go on living in the church until I’d got my house repaired and decorated and so on. And they discussed wages with me, and how I could borrow Patience and Euan’s stepladders, pasting table and so on…I’ve fought and fought against people trying to control my life, but this felt like people caring about my life instead.
And then they moved on to who else could they rope in to Project Restore The Church…Rafe, Leo, Lachlan and Marianna were high on their list of Useful people with Useful Talents. Wonder if they know what they’re being let in for? “It’s nice to be able to have the boards off the windows! We must get these done before the winter.”
Rafe nodded his agreement. Amber was right: another winter with the windows boarded over to keep out the cold would be Too Much.
“We’ve done okay though, so far. Luce and I both have good outlets for our work now.”
“And I’m finding writing here so much easier. I’m way more productive. I’ve got space and quiet and places for walks and enough interesting people to talk to when I need to clear my head a bit…” “Ah, the man himself! Now we can start the meeting.” It was their monthly finance update meeting, plus their quarterly renovation planning meeting all in one. “What kept you, baby brother?”
“Baby brother yourself! There’s only fifteen months between us! Sorry I’m a bit late. I met Marcus and we got chatting about Project Restore The Church.”
“What did you think when you had a look round it the other day?” Lucie asked, and then stopped herself. “No. Business here first!” “Okay. This room first then. We’ve dealt with that awful ceiling and we can paint the walls easily. Floor – let’s do a Marcus and see what we can repurpose from this building or another one. I think recycled wood will look great. The real expense is going to be the windows.”
“And we need to get those right,” Amber agreed. “We’re not going to want to change those. Repainting the walls isn’t a problem if we don’t get the colour right, but changing the windows…Anyone got any ideas about those already?”
“I’ve got ideas and costings for three different designs,” Rafe said smugly. Lucie widened her eyes in mock admiration for his efficiency.
“Hey, I couldn’t stand those boards again! We can do whichever of the three we like, though one will stretch us a little. Tell us about the church, Leo.” “Well, I’m amazed at how much Clara has managed to do in there over the last two years. That girl’s a real worker – I kind of think she really deserves some help. She said cleaning the stonework’s been good therapy: she’s taken out a lot of anger on it. I don’t always quite get her sense of humour…” “And now she’s working on the upper gallery – just started there. Except that Marcus and Old Tench and Minnie all threw a fit and made her promise to stop until she could borrow some safety netting to go across all the openings! She wasn’t too chuffed about that, but she did agree. Marcus and Annette are setting aside money for the stonework that needs doing – and we don’t have spare money anyway – but we could try making furniture, maybe. What do you think, big bro?”
“Definitely. In our spare time, but there’s no mad rush. I’d like to do that.”
“Lucie and I could put in some stone-cleaning time as well. I like Clara – and so does Marianna,” Amber added. They were scouting out the buildings to see if they could find anything to repurpose for the gallery floor. Leo and Lucie said they’d do their own building – and they hit gold almost straightaway.
“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Lucie asked.
“Oh yes,” Leo said. “But this won’t be enough by itself. Let’s check the next room – and hope for the best.” “What do you think that is?”
“I have no idea! But we could get Lachlan to come and have a look at it…he might be able to work it out. And to get it to work!”
“It’s the same flooring, isn’t it? Hopefully, the two rooms together will be enough. I wonder what Rafe and Amber have found.” “Gosh, this place is in a bad way. Do you think we could sell some of these old storage tanks for scrap, or would we end up having to pay someone to deal with them because of noxious chemical residues?”
Amber forever surprised Rafe – sometimes she was patently in a different world and then sometimes she was incredibly sharp and down-to-earth.
“I guess it depends what was in them…”
“I’ll see if there’s any clues. But now let’s see if there’s anything useful here.” “Just be careful,” Rafe called up to Amber as she headed up to the last room in the building, right at the top.
“I will. But the stairs are sound – I shook them good and hard to test them first!” Amber stood on the roof and looked out over the landscape, at the dried-up lake, the broken railway tracks. Really, the town’s very name was a joke now. And from the back of the building, she could see the remnants of the second lake. You couldn’t call it a lake now – more of a watering hole at best.
“Didn’t useter be like this,” Old Tench had said. “Useter be birds, animals, butterflies, hosses an’ all. An’ trees an’ greenery an’ things.”
We need to make gardens, she thought. A garden round our gallery to begin with, but gardens in other places as well. We need to bring back the green. “Might as well check this room out, now I’m up here,” she thought. Her howls of laughter when she saw what was inside brought Rafe hot-foot up the stairs. When he saw what she had to show him, he roared with amusement too.
“We’ll take one home to show the others!” “That flooring’s perfect, Luce. We’ll lift it and re-lay it and then rent Dan’s floor sander. I guess we better paint the walls first though.”
“Wait till you see what Rafe and I found! I brought one back with me – come and look: I’ve just finished cleaning it up.” “There you are! One genuine brass and Bakelite candlestick phone! And there were dozens and dozens of them! All we need is an old-fashioned switchboard with someone to sit at it, plugging lines in…”
“Amazing! Hey, if Lachlan added these to his recycled bikes, we’d have…mobile phones!” “Speaking as one professional doer-upper to another, this looks good.”
“Thanks,” Amber said to me. “From you, Clara, that is a real compliment. We still need to sand the floor, but that’s all, and we’ve booked Dan’s floor sander for doing that. And these floorboards will wear really well. How’s Project Restore The Church going?”
“Wait until we’re all here, Clara, and then you won’t have to tell the story twice! Amber, can you move your laptop?” Leo was bringing in some really nice-smelling food from the kitchen. I ended up quizzing Amber about what she was writing though, instead of talking about the church.
“I’m writing in my other genre at the moment.” She’d been really nice about me not really liking fantasy novels.
“I do sci-fi as well. They’ve got a lot in common – epic adventures, strange new landscapes and creatures – but a different flavour to the characters. No mages, no Talented and Gifted people: instead you’ve got characters relying on their wits and skill.” That sounded a bit more up my street, and I said so. “This is great,” I said to Leo, and he smiled, pleased. Rafe’s a bit dark and brooding for my liking, but Leo’s a lot more approachable.
“So how’s the project going then?” he asked.
“Well,” I said. “I’m busy cleaning the stone on the upstairs gallery – don’t worry, Dan’s lent me some safety barriers to stop me from accidentally plunging to my doom – but once I’ve finished that, it’s all about the building work, and Marcus and Annette are in charge of that. We need seating though and a lot of the leaded glass needs cleaning or mending or both. Marianna’s going to help me with that and teach me how to do it – she says it’s fiddly and needs patience but it’s not difficult.” “And then there’s the old school to do as well isn’t there?” Lucie asked. “For the autumn, when Marianna’s four start school. Patience is going to teach them, isn’t she? I do like those two – Euan’s a lovely guy and so didn’t deserve what happened to him.” I got a grand tour of the rest of the place (needed work. And then some), but I could tell that they were all loving being here despite the mess, and full of ideas and vision and also the practicality to probably make it happen.
“There’s no cast-iron guarantees,” Lucie said, mixing colour carefully, “but we’re on the right track. We have monthly check-ins, and quarterly ones as well for the longer-tern stuff…” I listened and learnt. Amber and I chatted for ages – about why she should paint the walls in her writing room (“It would obviously make you more productive, from what you’re saying. I’ll help.”), about what was motivating her heroine (I said she sounded a bit wet at the moment. She should make her more determined. “Determined about what, though? That’s what I can’t decide. I mean, she’s got to be in among the asteroid belt for the sequel…” “How about determined not to be taken for a sucker again? Then she can have any sort of back story – betrayal over love or money or someone copied her exams or stole her spaceship…”) and what she should call her book (“I’m planning three books round her – no more – so I want linked but progressing titles”).
Yep, I liked these guys. More than that, I could tell they accepted me as I was: Clara Hayes, making her own way and writing her own story, at last. Come again, they said, and I figured I would.

The factory buildings, the holes in the walls and the candlestick phone are by Cyclone Sue at TSR

If you want to try Clara for yourself, she's an AlphaFen creation, and can be found here:
Not Quite A Runaway Success
A renovacy made for MamaDragon by AlphaFen as part of the Amayzing Gift Exchange
https://www.thesims3.com/assetDetail.html?assetId=9310815
Back story here: https://forums.thesims.com/en_US/discussion/comment/17074021/#Comment_17074021