When Brandon entered the kitchen, he could smell the aroma of fresh cut pine in the house.  He followed the staccatoed report of the nail gun upstairs to his room, where Dell was perched on a ladder fastening the last of a series of coffered borders to the beadboard panels. He looked on in satisfaction, not only for the dramatic way in which the room had been transformed, but also for the glimpse of the rubber air compressor tubing snaking over Dell’s left boot as he raised the nailer above his head and blasted another round of tacks through a board. The hose snagged the hem of his jeans and pulled them up slightly, affording the most delicious view of the neck of Dell’s Timberland laced firmly around his ankle. 

“This looks amazing,” Brandon announced vaguely as the drone of air compressor halted in a hiss.  Dell looked down and grinned. 

“Oh, hey brother. Yeah—turned out pretty great.” He climbed down and joined Brandon at the door, admiring the new ceiling. “Couldn’t help but notice that you showed up just in time to see me finish. Well planned.”  He gave Brandon a playful punch. 

“I’ve always been pretty good at oversight.  So what do you think? A coat of creamy high-gloss paint?”

“I’ve always been partial to plain white.  But you’re the designer here. I don’t know a shower curtain from a…a…”

“A regular curtain?” Brandon volunteered helpfully. Dell slapped his leg and laughed.

“Yeah, probably not!”  He bent to shut off the compressor, and Brandon watched the golden domes of his boots crinkle over the tops of his feet. He could almost feel the fuzzy soft nubuck under his palm. He snapped to attention when Dell stood and turned back. “Well?  How was it?” he demanded affably. 

“The building? Gorgeous. I’d kill to get in there.”

“Hey—that’s great!  I’m sure they’ll let you sign on. Man, look at you!” he stepped back gestured to Brandon as though admiring his outfit. “This is gonna to work out. You’ve already got that positive energy!” He beamed. 

Brandon chuckled. “We’ll see. I’ve got a few hoops to jump through first. Can I help with anything?” He stooped to pick a piece of pine off the floor. 

Dell shook his head. “Naw. A craftsman always cleans up his own mess. But tell you what—I could use some of that amazing Italian roast if you have any.”

“You really have missed me being your neighbor, haven’t you?  You got it.”  Brandon leaned against the doorway and watched as Dell deftly coiled up an extension cord and slung it into one of his bags. 

“So what do you have going on today now that you’re done with all that?” he asked as he rolled out the Shop Vac. Brandon silently prayed that there were no dried traces of him on it from its last use. 

“Well, obviously I’ve got to work up my business proposal. And I have to put this room back together.” He picked his way across the sawdust covered floor and rested his forehead against the sash of window that looked over the backyard. “But I’m also in the middle of a little gardening project.” 

---

He wiped his hand across his forehead as dust mingled with sweat. The sun had sunken low enough that the space between the garage and the woodshed was cast in a merciful shade, but even so Brandon could feel the heat rise off of him from his exertions. He jammed his garden spade into the ground with a metallic clang and dislodged the last stubborn rock from the u-shaped trench he had carved into the yard. 

As a child, he had dug a hole in the woods behind his parents’ house. The earth had been full of shale and braided through with tree roots, not to mention it had an acrid scent. Every scoop of soil removed had represented a battle. But this was old farmland. The tip of his spade had sliced through the rich loam with little resistance, like a knife through a moist sponge cake.  He stood back for a moment to appraise his work, then set to lining the basin with an old tarp he had unearthed in the garage. He carefully trimmed it to size and fitted into into place.  It laid snugly against the dirt sides that he had so painstakingly contoured. 

Brandon began to backfill the deep furrow with about half the soil he had removed, dumping in bagged sand that Anthony kept for when the driveway got slick in the winter. He used his shovel to fold it in under the soil became loose and crumbly. When he was satisfied with the texture, he carefully arranged a soaker hose on the prepared ground. He hooked this up the rain barrel that stood next to the woodshed and—as it now happened—the new trench.

“Moment of truth,” he said out loud. He turned the valve at the base of the barrel and small fountains gurgled along the length of the hose.  Rivulets immediately began to churn through the crumbly fill.  Brandon smiled at his creation, the ache in the back of his throat blooming. 

He carefully began to lay the remainder of the fill in the trench, leveling it with the rest of the yard but leaving a small dimple to accommodate the rain barrel’s overflow hose. Then he meticulously recovered the entire thing with the sod he had removed in small cut tiles. By the time he had hosed the area of grass down, all evidence that the ground had ever been disturbed was gone. 

Brandon threw everything into the wheel barrow and rolled it into the garage. When he closed the door, he looked at the gathering clouds in the west. Another evening summer storm approached.

Perfect. 

The hook was now dangling in the water. All that was left was to wait.