Page 23 of The Cul-de-Sac War

He didn’t have time.

If anyone needed help, it was him. Right now he had no working toilet and a damaged subfloor in the bathroom. Right now, any time nature called, Chip found himself driving down the street to a gas station—even at midnight.

He had problems of his own. The priority here was clear.

Chip stood under the light of his own porch in the crisp, mid-March air, determined not to look at the elderly woman across the street hobbling from her parked car toward her door. Everything about her small brick ranch was lightless. Every one of her four visible windows, the shadowy line of her slanted sidewalk, the petite stoop. Two grocery bags swung from her arm as she shakily grabbed the railing and began to ascend.

He looked down at the circular saw in his hand and the plywood between the sawhorses at his feet, then back toward the woman across the street. Why wouldn’t her porch light come on? Why, in a week and a half, had it never come on?

Was the bulb burned out?

Did she not flick the switch up before leaving?

The woman stopped at the screen door and began digging in her purse.

He’d watched her do this the other night too. It took a painstaking five minutes to find her keys, and when she finally did, it felt like she spent half an hour trying to find the lock and turn the knob.

He dropped his gaze to the measured line on his board. He considered pulling the trigger and starting the saw. He glanced up again.

Still rooting in her purse.

He glanced at the board again. Set the saw down.

“Mrs. Lewis!” he called, stepping off his porch and then jogging across the street.

She looked up at the sound of her name and watched him until he reached the bottom of her steps.

“I can’t help noticing.” He pointed up above her head. “Is something wrong with your light?”

Mrs. Lewis, still holding the key, blinked a few times. Apparently she wasn’t used to men approaching her in the twilight of eight thirty.

“My light?” She turned back to the door. Craned her head upward. “Oh, yes, I’ve had trouble with that light for a few months now.”

“Would you . . . care if I take a look?” He gave her an easy smile. “I do know my way around a light switch.”

She flapped her hand dismissively. “Oh, honey, I see you out there working. I know you do.” If he didn’t know better, he’d say he heard a bit of teasing in her voice. She turned toward the door. “Just let me . . . get us inside here . . . and—”

“Here.” Chip slipped his phone out of his pocket and turned on the flashlight.

With the knob illuminated, it took but a moment to get the lock turned and them both inside the tiny foyer. Mrs. Lewis turned the living-room lights on and began walking toward the kitchen with her bags.

Chip turned toward the row of switches by the door.

“It’s the far left one. Can I get you something?” Mrs. Lewis’s voice carried from the kitchen. He heard a refrigerator opening. “Tea?”

Chip flicked the switch three or four times. Nothing.

“No thanks,” he called back, then stepped outside to get a closer look. “Have you tried a new bulb?”

“A neighbor tried a few weeks ago,” she called back. “No luck.”

He frowned. “I’m going to grab some tools from my truck. Can you direct me toward your basement?”

When his attempts at a quick fix tripped the breaker twice, Chip knew he’d be spending the rest of the evening working in Mrs. Lewis’s house, running a new circuit from the panel to the light fixture.

Well. Who needed indoor plumbing anyway?

After three more polite refusals of tea, coffee, and crumb cake, he was in the basement, halfway into removing the existing wire from the 20-amp breaker.