Then, just when I’d sorted all that out and flown back to Saginaw, Michigan-
BRiiing! The phone rang.
Here’s the scene, one week ago.
It was evening. In our little farmhouse in Saginaw County where we’d raised our family, Joe and I were watching a richly visual, mostly wordless television documentary about French insect country life, which riveted me, by the way.
Then the phone jingled.
Rats.
“Hello,” I murmured, my eye locked onto two dragonflies copulating to Bach’s lovely music.
It turned out to be a strange man who yabbled on about an SUV penetrating my Traverse City residence.
Right. Go home and sleep it off, sir.
But gradually, and with growing disbelief, I grasped that this was a Traverse City policeman, who patiently explained again that my alarm had gone bonkers. They’d rushed to Sunnybank House to find an SUV parked on the big front porch, with its nose poked into the wall and front door!
Apparently, while traveling down Sixth Street, its driver, a young teen, had veered into a large van parked in front of the neighbor’s home. Horrified, She’d jerked the wheel away, then pressed hard on the brake-which turned out to be the accelerator. Her car turned toward the house, roared over the curb, flattened my vintage cast iron fence, gained traction on the lawn, rocketed full speed through the front flowerbed, roared up the broad porch stairs onto the porch and- KABOOM!! -hit the front door and wall, which buckled. The house shuddered with the shock. Instantly the alarm shrieked, the stairs collapsed, the car steamed, the teen screamed…
And there, dear readers, began an interesting evening.
You can’t make this stuff up.
Oh, heavens. Sunnybank House was truly wounded. Police lights flashed; car headlights lit the scene, as it was nine p.m. and raining. EMS arrived to help the terrified driver; neighbors gawked in disbelief. Shortly, a big tow truck arrived. Its operator surveyed the situation with amazement. After working out the logistics, the guy secured the car with a winch and gingerly, skillfully lowered it down and hauled it away.
I know all this because family and friends took photos.
The porch steps and railings had splintered, and were flung around the lawn. Heavy twin iron urns flanking the porch were cast aside. The two central porch pillars were gone, leaving the roof unsupported. Headlight shards were buried in the doorbell.
It was surreal.
Now, the good news.
-The driver was unhurt- a wonderful Christmas gift. Everything else can be rebuilt. It’s just stuff.
-I wasn’t there. (I probably would have been snoring, as I retire early. Fogged with sleep I would have bolted out of bed, initially imagining that a plane had hit the house. Desperate to help, but unable to pry open the front door I’d have been forced to run out the back door, through the garage and around the block in my nightgown, and then, I wouldn’t have been able to mount the stairs- because there weren’t any.
Another certainty: I’d have stepped on a nail, or torn timber, or, even better- my nightie would have snagged on something, leaving more than the house’s frame exposed…The mind boggles, don’t it?)
-It wasn’t snowing, hailing, sleeting or blowing. All was calm, all was bright (and wet), lit up like a Christmas tree by police, who worked the scene with admirable efficiency. They kept me informed, and assured me they’d monitor it all night. 150 miles away I was fine with that. We can’t pay our city guardians too much.
-It hadn’t happened in summer, during gardening season.
All in all, the situation could have been MUCH worse.
Hmmm…There really isn’t a lot of bad news. Yes, I’ll be majorly inconvenienced for the winter because Sunnybank got mega-bonked, but -life happens while we’re making other plans.
I can probably still live there, at least part of the time, and get underfoot watching my talented friend Les rebuild.
Update:
The next morning he entered the house via the back door and found the front hallway’s plaster wall flung all over, exposing the lath. The Victorian door’s heavy brass knob had rocketed into the dining room. Fat wall and ceiling fissures extend to the second floor. One handmade, curved window in the second floor’s tower has broken. It appears that that entire bearing wall must be stripped to the studs, inside and out, and fortified. Plaster ceilings and walls on two floors, and in three bedrooms, need replacing. And every day new ‘uh-ohs’ reveal themselves.
Les, a master builder who specializes in putting Victorian homes right, and who knows every inch of mine after working on it for twenty years, is more than up to the job. He thrives on this stuff.
So, this is more good news.
‘Tis the season!