Chapter 13 - Stripping the Stolen Paint
Returning to the Dennis Estate the following week felt entirely different under the crisp morning sunlight.
The police tape had been cleared from the driveway, and the luxury white SUV and red sedan had been hauled off by federal marshals.
A large commercial contractor van was parked on the gravel circle where Reagan had stood when she turned me away.
Camden stood on the front lawn, holding a heavy scraper in his hand, looking up at the elegant gray paint that had covered the historic facade.
“My father built these walls from native cedar and fieldstone,” Camden said, running his calloused palm over the painted wood.
“Reagan thought she could make it look like a sterile country club resort.”
“She thought a coat of gray paint could hide the rot underneath.”
Four laborers began setting up scaffolding along the exterior walls, firing up sanders and chemical strippers.
I joined my father on the front porch, where the sleek black modern door with its electronic keypad had already been removed.
Lying on the porch planks was the original oak door with its brass handle, brought out from the basement where Reagan had discarded it.
Old Arthur, the cemetery groundskeeper, walked up the stone walkway carrying a box wrapped in burlap.
He looked rested, wearing a clean flannel shirt and holding a wide grin across his weathered face.
“Thought you might be needing these, Camden,” Arthur said, setting the wooden crate onto the porch steps.
Inside were dozens of root balls wrapped in damp moss—the original rose bushes my mother had planted forty years ago.
“Where did you get these, Arthur?” I asked, astonished.
“When that wicked woman ordered the landscapers to tear them up and toss them in the county compost bin, I loaded them into the back of my pickup truck,” Arthur laughed, wiping his hands on his trousers.
“I planted them in the nursery plot behind the cemetery tool shed.”
“I watered them every Sunday morning waiting for this day.”
Camden knelt beside the crate, touching the green stems with profound tenderness.
“You saved my wife’s roses, Arthur.”
“A man who tends graves knows the difference between what’s truly dead and what’s just waiting for spring, Camden,” the old man smiled.
We spent the entire afternoon working in the soil alongside the front walkway.
For the first time in three years, the dirt beneath my fingernails didn't feel like prison gravel or the cold mud of an empty cemetery plot.
It felt like home.
Inside the house, workers tore down the sterile whiteboards and carried out the gaudy modern furniture Carter had purchased on credit.
In the master bedroom, the original hardwood was buffed, and the old cedar armchairs were returned from Harold’s storage facility.
As evening fell, Camden sat on the porch bench, watching the sunset cast long golden rays across the surface of Silver Lake.
His breathing was easier, his skin color had normalized, and the hollow exhaustion had faded from his gaze.
“You don't hold hate in your heart for the years you lost, Finnley?” Camden asked quietly, watching the crows circle above the pines.
“I spent my first year in Oakwood hating you, Dad,” I confessed, looking at the scarred knuckles of my hands.
“I thought you had given up on me.”
“I thought you believed Carter’s lies.”
“Then I remembered who raised me.”
“I remembered how you taught me to inspect every container bolt before signing off on a cargo manifest.”
“I knew that if you were silent, something was holding the knife to your throat.”
Camden placed a hand over mine, his grip firm and warm.
May you like
“A family isn't the house we live in, Finnley.”
“It’s the trust we refuse to break when everything else is burned to the ground.”
