Everything in the house was damp. A fine green mold spread over the
books and papers and paintings that were stacked so high and piled so
deep you could hardly cross the room. Tiny mushrooms sprouted up in
corners. The moisture ate away at the wooden stairs leading up to the
house, and climbing them became a daily hazard. Mom fell through a
rotted step and went tumbling down the hillside. She had bruises on her
legs and arms for weeks. "My husband doesn't beat me," she'd say when
anyone stared at them. "He just won't fix the stairs."
The porch had also started to rot. Most of the banisters and railing had
given way, and the floorboards had turned spongy and slick with mold
and algae. It became a real problem when you had to go down under the
house to use the toilet at night, and each of us had slipped and fallen off
the porch at least once. It was a good ten feet to the ground.
"We have to do something about the porch situation," I told Mom. "It's
getting downright dangerous to go to the bathroom at night." Besides, the
toilet under the house was now totally unusable. It had overflowed, and
you were better off digging yourself a hole in the hillside somewhere.
"You're right," Mom said. "Something has to be done."
She bought a bucket. It was made of yellow plastic, and we kept it on the
floor in the kitchen, and that was what we used whenever we had to go to
the bathroom. When it filled up, some brave soul would carry it outside,
dig a hole, and empty it.
ONE DAY WHILE Brian and I were out scrounging around on the edge
of our property, he picked up a piece of rotting lumber, and there among
the pill bugs and night crawlers was a diamond ring. The stone was big.
At first we thought it was just neat junk, but we spit-polished it and
scratched glass with it like Dad had shown us, and it seemed real. We