“Rebecca -- have you seen Marcia?”“She called this morning and said she wasn’t coming in.”“Is she ill?”“She didn’t say.”“We have...that meeting tomorrow to discuss our vendor selection. I wanted to finalize our recommendation.”“She said tomorrow is iffy, too. You might need to do it solo, Darren.”“Do you have her home phone number?” he asked.Rebecca turned to her computer and copied numbers onto a pad of sticky notes. “I shouldn’t be giving you this...”Darren sat at the desk he had been provided. " She helped," Brock pointed out."She helped a lot," Meredith agreed. "I wasn't sure how it would work, you know, having her live with us. I was a little leery when you offered to let her live there but I knew it was for the best. Well, I didn't know it but I trusted you to know what was best. Turns out I was right." I'm not always going to know," Brock replied."I realize that," Meredith said. "And even when you do we usually discuss it anyway. That's what I like about us. I get everything I. I need to be within bow shoot of the chicken coop. Now, this part of the hill looks good. Yeah, it's about 20 feet away, so if that coop smells too much, I'll just have to muck out the straw more often.Once again I begin to dig into the hill, about a foot above grade. There is a pick in the pod — how'd I forget about that before? — which makes it easier to dig out. The excess dirt I leave in front like a stoop, so that it naturally is above flood and rain. The height is just a little above my. I explained that it had been boarded up and secured for the Winter and would probably take me a half an hour just to open it. It being December I explained it would be cold inside as this house was just a shell, no running water or heat. "You have no idea what these places do to me", she said in a breathy whisper.Feeling a tuning fork in my heart at her statement I promised that next weekend I would open it up for her and give her a tour inside. So on Thursday of that week I went to the house.