CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
(part six)

“Are you ready, Sandy?” Valerie giggled.

“I guess so.”

Valerie drove the excavator up onto the lawn. She moved the arm near the exterior of the house.

“Go ahead, Sandy,” Valerie said.

“What am I doing?”

“You’re demolishing your father’s house, the place you were so awfully hurt.” Valerie’s eyes were huge. For all of her actress ways, at this moment, Valerie was one-hundred percent heart. “Just move the lever and the walls will fall. When you’re done, the bulldozer will scrape the mess. These folks will get all the destruction into the dumpster. In a couple hours, you won’t know there was a house here.”

“Really?” Sandy bit her lip. “Why would you do this?”

“I think every woman knows what can happen to children. I’ve always been very lucky. But I’ve known a lot of women who weren’t so lucky. My college roommate killed herself because her abuse. I wanted you to… be able to have some real peace, start some healing. I know you’ve had therapy, but I gave Aden a list of some good people. We’re going to get you on our insurance plan and you can get some professional support while you go through this.”

“Why would you do this? For me?”

“Because you matter. Because you deserve to have some justice for yourself. Because some things are just too awful to standby and do nothing,” Valerie said. “Plus, this is going to be fun. Put on your mask!”

Sandy and Valerie put on their dust masks. Valerie swung the bucket of the excavator forward.

SMASH. The bucket created a hole in the wall of the house. Sandy screamed, hooted, laughed and cheered. Heather, Tanesha and the crowd of employees cheered. Valerie maneuvered the bucket near another piece of the wall.

“Your turn!”

Sandy smashed the wall with the bucket, then smashed it again. Within minutes they had demolished the exterior wall. The roof fell in. Valerie demolished the roof debris and the flooring. She backed up the excavator so that the bulldozer could clear off the mess. The workers began clearing bricks, old furniture and everything the bulldozer didn’t carry into the dumpster.

“Ready for the next set of walls?”

Valerie drove the excavator close to the interior walls. She reached the arm over wood floor interior next to the wall. Thinking this non-load bearing wall would fall over with one solid thump, Valerie lined the excavator bucket near the middle of the wall.

“Go ahead!” Valerie said.

Sandy thumped the wall. Unlike the exterior wall, this wall didn’t come apart.

“Go again!”

Sandy moved the bucket more quickly. The wall shimmied then seemed to sigh. A chunk of plaster slipped down to reveal metal sheeting underneath.

“That’s just weird, but try again!” Valerie said.

The excavator bucket made it’s third contact. The wall seemed to bend forward, collapsing from the inside. A moment later, stream of green paper flew up in the air.  The paper caught a warm draft from the excavator exhaust and began flying all over the yard.

“Is that what I think it is?” Valerie asked into her walkie-talkie.

The workers ran forward to check

“Hundred dollar bills!” came over the walkie-talkie. “There’s a million dollars here – minimum.”

“Did you know?” Valerie asked Sandy.

“He always said it was safer to keep his money at home,” Sandy said. “I didn’t know about the walls. Why would he sell the house?”

“He told his attorneys he had to get money out of the house to pay their fees,” Valerie said. “Guess they misinterpreted what he meant.”

Sandy laughed.

Denver Cereal continues on Monday…