ERNIE AND ERNESTINA: Searching

Book Two, Chapter 67: Work, Work, Work

I’ve been accepted into a local university’s depression study. In two days I’ll have my first session with a cognitive-behavior therapist.

In ten days I’ll be in my attorney’s office answering questions posed by opposing counsel in my wrongful-death lawsuit against Ernie’s urologist.

And every day I can muster the energy, I scrub ceilings and walls at the Charles Street house. This work makes me cough and gives me a sore throat — I think from the harsh cleaners I’m using. They’re powerful, but they have to be to remove the nicotine built up from the previous owner’s cigarette smoking. But who knows? Maybe nicotine is giving me the cough and sore throat. Maybe nicotine never loses its power to hurt.

I feel like a little kid over there, not up to the huge task. So much work still to do. Prime and paint walls and ceilings. Repair or replace oven and stove top. Install toe molding in kitchen and bedroom. Put up French doors to separate dining room from living room. Hang roll-up blinds. Rpeair, clean, and wax oak floors. Fix bathroom window’s broken crank. Replace plumbing’s copper piping. And that’s just the interior work.

Of course, Joshua will do most of the work, with big help from Jerry, his ace carpenter, and from Steve, his reliable plumber. Just now Joshua’s removing, with heat gun on low, the final patches of white paint from the framing around the center hall’s seven doors.

Will we ever finish this work?

Ernie would probably say: You’re both nuts. Paint the mother and rent it out. The sooner, the better.