An ambulance drove up as Brian left, and they took Mattie out on a stretcher. The crying and screaming had stopped several minutes ago, so they must have given her something to sedate her. They’d have to keep her that way if she was going to return to the nursing home. Al didn’t care what they did with her as long as they didn’t bring her back.
He walked downstairs and shook hands with the deputy and Ma’s friend, Phillip Collier. “Thanks for your help, gentlemen. We tried to find her another place to live, but she wouldn’t leave.”
“We know,” said Phillip. “I’m afraid age has taken a toll.”
Al suspected it was more than age with Mattie. She was off his hands now, and Jenna didn’t have to deal with her again.
Now, if he could just convince Jenna to stay with him at the inn instead of going back to his mother’s house. This old inn was like a tomb without her there.
Al ordered a ham and mushroom pizza and made a salad to go with it while Jenna cleaned up the broken ceramic horse in the living room.
“Who knew a frail old woman could cause this much trouble,” said Jenna. “If I’d known she was this unstable I never would have agreed to take care of her.”
“But look what you would have missed out on.”
She looked up. “What?”
“Me.”
She laughed so hard she had to sit down.
“Woman, you’re hard on a man’s ego.”
Chapter Seventeen
A
fter Mattie left, Jenna decided not to move back to Sophia’s house. Alessandro’s mother had a man in her life, and there were times when Jenna thought being there interfered in their relationship. It wasn’t easy sleeping down the hall from Alessandro after all the nights they’d spent together, but she’d find an apartment soon and move out of the inn for good.
Aside from her job with Cara, she needed to distance herself from the Donatelli family. Jenna loved Sophia – she loved them all – but Sophia wanted a wife for her son, and she’d decided that wife would be Jenna. Knowing she was pregnant had increased the pressure. The whole family probably knew about the pregnancy by now, although the only one Jenna had talked about it with was Cara.
Alessandro had made his feelings known. He wanted her to stay with him, he wanted to have sex with her, and he wanted the baby, but he didn’t trust the baby’s mother. Without love and respect and trust, what was the point? She didn’t need a man to take care of her. Except for her college tuition and a little child support for Katie, she’d been paying her own way since she was seventeen.
Hearing him sing along with his Italian opera and having him play with Katie and give her horsy rides softened her feelings toward him. She still loved him, and she knew Katie loved him, too. He’d always be in her life because they’d created a baby together, but their relationship would have to be kept at the friendship level.
Jenna found a day care for Katie and spent her lunch hours looking for another place to live. There was a nice townhouse for rent, but the thought of carrying a baby up and down those steep stairs didn’t sit well with her, so she kept looking. Everyplace wanted hefty pet deposits, but she couldn’t deprive Katie of her kitty friend. Callie had become a part of their family.
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Maria and Blade hosted the family dinner that Sunday afternoon. Phillip was treated like an honored guest. Sophia was half afraid her sons would grill him, but aside from a little teasing, which Phillip handled well, they behaved themselves. Maria was a gracious hostess, as always.
Alessandro brought Jenna and Katie, and Katie immediately sought out Sophie. Jenna was quiet, and she didn’t eat much, but everyone went out of their way to talk with her and make her feel welcome.
The little children in the family watched Phillip, seemingly in awe of his white hair and mustache. Finally, little Jeannie walked over to Phillip’s chair and raised her arms to be picked up. He lifted her to his lap, and she touched his mustache. He rubbed it on her hand and she giggled. She wasn’t quite two, a precocious little tyke with Maria’s dark hair and Blade’s striking blue eyes.
After that, all the little kids stood around his chair wanting to touch his mustache. After dinner, while the mothers cleaned up their little ones, Phillip did a few magic tricks for the older kids. Vinnie leaned close to Sophia. “Nice guy. Papa would have liked him.”
Yes, Vincent would have liked him.
Gina was the only one Sophia worried about. Even as her two boys watched magic tricks and laughed with Phillip, she stayed back. Maybe she was remembering her broken engagement with Phillip’s son, Chip, but Sophia’s friendship with Phillip had nothing to do with her or Chip. She’d have to have a heart to heart talk with Gina one of these days, but not today.
Al pulled Phillip and Jenna aside for a little talk. “Phillip, how is Mattie doing?”
“The doctors are trying to stabilize her. The nursing home won’t take her back unless the doctors can get her on the right medication to keep her under control. I’d hate to see her end up in a mental institution.”
“Me, too, but I can’t handle her,” said Jenna. “I don’t know anyone who can. What are we doing about the nursing home?”
“I can stop paying the bill if that’s what you want. It’s a waste of money if she won’t be able to return there, but if they release her from the hospital, she’ll need a place to go.”
“They have a locked unit at the nursing home. Isn’t that for people with mental problems?”
“It’s for people with memory problems who are prone to wandering off by themselves. A nurse at the hospital found matches, a garage door opener, and several hundred dollars in Mattie’s pocket. Mattie tried to hit the nurse when she wouldn’t give them back. You don’t want to put someone like that in with confused but docile or sick old people.”
“No.”
“Let’s think about this for a few days and see how Mattie does in say a week. We can reevaluate at that time.”
“Yes, all right.” Unless they kept her sedated, Jenna doubted there’d be any improvement in a week.
In spite of the way Mattie had treated her, Jenna felt sorry for her. She was sick in her mind, but looking back, this had been coming on for years. At least she wouldn’t be coming back to the inn. After this little episode, they’d keep a closer eye on her.
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Al worked day and night on the plans for the Dead Man’s Point project until he had a total of five plans with features that most of Nick’s upper end buyers wanted. Only one of the plans had a basement, but basements could easily be added to the other plans, depending on the lots they’d be built on. The land sloped down from the street toward the water, and some lots were perfect for daylight basements.
Jenna often came into Al’s office to see what he was working on. She pointed out the features she especially liked, but in one plan, she shook her head. “I know sliding doors let in more light than a door and window, but...”
“But you don’t like it?”
“No. I looked at an apartment that had a slider like that. Everything else was nice, and the price was right, but I like to sleep with a window open, and there was no other window in the room. I’d be afraid to leave a sliding door unlocked all night, especially in an apartment complex. If I was paying this much money for a home, I’d probably have valuable things in the house, and I wouldn’t want to entice someone to walk in and steal something.” She glanced at his face. “Or hurt someone.”
Al examined that part of the plan again. The guest room on the main floor opened to a walled-in courtyard, but the wall was only two feet tall, with a built-in bench on top, easy to step over.
He removed the slider from the plan and replaced it with a French door with narrow windows on either side. The windows were too narrow for a person to get through and they didn’t open near the door latch, so someone couldn’t reach in and unlock the door. These homes would all have state of the art security systems, so if someone broke a window or opened a door, an alarm would go off. They’d also have air-conditioning, although they didn’t really need it along the water.
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A few days later, Nick brought a couple out to the inn. The woman said, “This view is absolutely breathtaking.”
The man didn’t say much until after they walked around and talked about which lots they liked. He walked inside and looked around the living and dining rooms of the old inn. “What are you doing with this building?”
“Tearing it down,” said Nick, “unless you’re interested in having it renovated for your new home.”
“That depends on what else you have to offer.”
They sat at the dining room table and Al handed them one of the plans. “These are preliminary plans that can be customized to fit your own personal needs. This plan has four bedrooms, four full baths and two half baths, a home theater and exercise room in the basement, a library, and a study. It should have views from nearly every room in the house.”
Al put the pictures he’d drawn of the kitchen, library, front of the house, back of the house, and the master bedroom on the table around the plan, and then he put the picture of the sun room in front of them. He’d sketched in plants and wicker furniture. “The sun porch will go on the south side of the house to catch the winter sun. If you choose this plan and we put it on a waterfront lot, it would go here.” He pointed to the plan. “It would open off the family room and the library.”
The woman’s face glowed. She obviously liked what she saw. The man asked a lot of questions, and he examined each of the pictures before stacking them in the middle of the table.
“I’m impressed,” he said, “but that’s too much house for us. We’re looking to downsize now that all the kids are gone.”
Al flipped through his plans and pulled out another one. “What about this one? It doesn’t have a basement, and it has three bedrooms instead of four. We can leave the sun porch off if you like.”
“Oh, no, I love the sun room,” said the woman.
Nick winked at him, and Al knew they had a sale. The wife chose the home with the features she liked and, if the price was within their budget and the husband was convinced the property was a good investment, the sale was in the bag. It didn’t always work that way, but Al had been involved in enough of these discussions to know that was the way it usually worked.
The man looked up and asked, “How many plans do you have?”
“Five so far. As I said before, they’re preliminary plans that can be customized to meet your needs. They all have stone and clapboard exteriors and they’ll probably all have sun rooms. Nick’s wife loves their sun room.” They all knew who Nick was married to. That statement would no doubt be repeated to this couple’s friends and family when they showed people through their completed home.
“What about landscaping?” the man asked.
“Included,” said Nick. “Every house will have patios and decks for outdoor living, grass, shrubs, and a water feature of some kind. The lots are bigger than any view lots you’ll find in this area.” At this price, they could afford to spend a few thousand on landscaping, and Vinnie’s creative landscaping would make the entire development look good.
Nick talked price with them for several minutes, and they didn’t blink at Nick’s, “Up to two million, depending on square footage, lot, and features.”
After talking about the exclusive community of luxury homes with stairs down to the beach, Nick took the buyers outside again. “We’ll only have nine lots. We could have packed in a few more, but this way everyone will have an open view of the sound. We’ll put in some steps down to the beach, but the homeowners will have to maintain them.”
“Yeah, yeah,” the man said. “Whatever you put in will have to be maintained.”
Nick moved in for the sale. “Are you interested enough to make a commitment?”
Husband and wife looked at each other, and the man nodded. “We’d like time to study all the plans before we decide which one we want, and we’ll take one of the waterfront lots, whichever one my wife wants.”
The inn had to come out, and soon, so they could get started, but Al wasn’t anxious to move now that he had Jenna living here with him. He could always live with his mother, but Jenna wouldn’t live there again. She’d made it clear that she wanted her own space, and he didn’t want to go anywhere without her.
The buyers left with a copy of Al’s plans. They’d study them and figure out which one they wanted, and then they’d return after the inn had been torn down to choose a lot. It would be next year before this couple would be living at Dead Man’s Point and the following year before all the homes were built and occupied.
Nick asked, “Are you moving in with Aunt Sophia?”
“Probably, but I need to find a place where I can work undisturbed.”
“How about if we put one of those construction trailers on your new property?”
“Why don’t we just build a studio with a garage back in the trees? I can use the garage for a workshop after we get the house in.”
Nick nodded. “Get it drawn up and the plans approved, and we’ll get a crew started.”
Al had the plan for the studio nearly finished when Jenna came home from work and called up to him. “If you want to go out for dinner tonight, I’m buying.”