Chapter 1: A New Start

Irma had been as excited as a teen looking at her first new car when she stepped off of the plane. We all felt a sense of pride in our part in bringing her back as we saw exactly how much this meant to her. As we waited for our baggage those thoughts running through my mind led me to contemplate my own life. As I reflected it dawned on me just how much my own life had changed for the better over the past couple of months. Less than two months ago my work was the sole focus of my life. That life had been an endless repletion of the same mundane routine.

They say that time moves by more swiftly as we get older. I'm not sure whether that is true or whether it's more that our mind, in overlaying an endless sequence of similar events, creates that illusion. I thought back over the past few years and could think of few things that stood out in my mind as being exceptional. I had made some money but to what end?

I unconsciously smiled at the irony that the house at 101 Bell Whistle had at first only seemed to be an unwelcomed disruption of that boring routine. I was so caught up in my routine that my first thought had been that the house took me all the way across town from the usual work sites; subdivisions where my subcontractors, Hector and Jorge, supervised crews cleaning out foreclosed homes that had been repossessed by the banks.

My business had become successful because I managed to take only those jobs that were straightforward and involved nothing out of the ordinary. This was because the unusual took more effort and time, which translated into much higher costs. My way of insuring that I stayed away from those jobs was making outrageously high bids on those jobs. I laughed as I thought that my original intent had been to pass up even bidding on the house at 101 Bell Whistle; a house I now called my own.

The remarkable thing about the bland routine that I had been drifting along in was that I had managed to acquire quite a few friends; people that I hadn't even realized were my friends. I now realized that those friends were more important than the money that I had managed to squirrel away at several area banks. Faces of those friends immediately flashed into my mind; Hector, one of my faithful subcontractors, was the first. He and Camilla, his wife, had spent more time helping us explore the house than anyone. I remember my surprise when he and Jorge had first volunteered their Saturday to help me move furniture and the interest that Hector had shown in the old house.

Then there was Kelli, the daughter of Mrs. Li, the Vietnamese expatriate owner of a small Chinese restaurant. They both 'knew me when' and I thought of them as two of the hardest working women I had ever met. Mrs. Li ran the tiny restaurant with only the help of her daughter Kelli and an occasional part-time waitress. What I hadn't realized during the hundreds of times I had eaten in that small restaurant was that both Mrs. Li and Kelli were encouraging me to move out of my comfort zone even way back then. Their teasing me about eating something other than the General Tso's chicken that I loved so much was a small part of that effort.

In the end it had been Kelli who had convinced Audra that I was someone she could be comfortable with. Young Kelli, whom I had mistakenly thought to be submissive, had ended up being quite outspoken as she had told Audra "Joe no big shot, he just good guy." Then she had supported that statement by telling Audra of the many times I had come into her mother's restaurant covered from head to toe with sheetrock dust or sawdust. I was embarrassed by that, but Kelli was smart enough to know that those remarks were just the right thing needed to convince Audra that I was not above her social station.

I looked at my watch as the moments ticked by, waiting for the baggage to be offloaded. Audra was sitting down next to Irma chatting quietly. Seeing her sitting there with her feet folded up underneath her reminded me of the first moment I had seen her. She was in a similar pose on my kitchen floor encouraging her cat, Mr. Whiskers. She had seemed so small, so unkempt and so thin that time that I had put her age at around 15. I thought back and remembered that I had been fearful when I first heard the noise coming from the kitchen and how quickly I had overcome those fears when I saw that the source of the noise couldn't have weighed 90 pounds, soaking wet. I had never told her that my first thought of her had compared her gaunt appearance to Twiggy, the sixties model who had paved the way for the anorexic look so common now among fashion models. Knowing her fiery temper, I doubted that I would ever mention that fact.

Still, looking back to that moment, something even then had tugged on my heartstrings. Had my feelings for her begun at that moment or had they come later after she told me her story? I remembered the chase and the bruises on my shins that she gave me as she fought my capture. Her spirited fight had left me winded and yet sympathetic. As I thought about those first moments that we had come together I realized for the first time that I had not wanted her to leave, even before knowing her. Had I been that lonely, that starved for company?

I looked at Elise sitting on the other side of Irma and realized that she had been the first friend to see the change in me that Audra had wrought. The woman I first thought of as the neighborhood busybody was now one of my closest friends. She had given me clues about the house, about Audra and about myself. Clues that without her help, I may have eventually uncovered ... but how much longer would the journey have taken without her friendship and help?

I remembered when half in jest I told her that if I talked to her any longer she would know more about my business than I did. Her discerning nature had certainly made it seem that way. The only mistake I had seen her make was in her assessment of Audra, and I think that mistaken understanding was a case of her not having access to all the facts. She certainly had recognized my love for Audra before I had a clue it was there.

Then there was the house itself. What a gift that was! I knew now that I needed something to take me away from the workaday world and the house certainly seemed to fill that bill. It seemed the more I explored the deeper the mystery. First I had discovered the tunnel running underneath the house to the garage; the tunnel that Audra had traveled into and out of the house. Then I discovered an inner passageway within the walls of the house itself; a passageway that was unknown, even to Audra who had lived in the house her entire life. As I explored that passageway I found that it connected to the tunnel and had possibly been used along with the tunnel to smuggle freed slaves out of the south before the Civil War. As if that was not enough Audra, Hector and Camilla helped me further explore that tunnel and when we did we found that it led through a large natural cavern into the waters of the bay itself.

Our trip to Arizona complete, we now had the means to secure ownership of that surrounding property, at least for the present. Looking over at Irma I could see that she certainly was happy to be back here with us. I was shaken out of my reverie by a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to find Edward, Elise's husband, smiling at me. He quickly walked past me before I could say anything and lifted his wife into a hug. I could see him launch into an animated conversation with Elise and Irma as he hugged his former neighbor. About the time I started over, the luggage suddenly appeared on the carousel. Now we could get home. Edward and I grabbed the four large bags and he led us all out to his waiting car. The large Lincoln was crowded as we all piled in for the trip across town. Edward remarked that we were smart to have most of Irma's possessions shipped separately to Elise's address.