was given three years ago…and she said it barely heats one room. The child was wearing flip-flops. She did not have a coat. The baby was in pajamas and no blanket, and the mother looked like she was starving. Those houses are pitiful, and I’d warrant the families are all living the same lives.”
“And what do you think I can do?” Mavis asked.
“I’ve called the landlord, asking to buy the property, but if I can’t get a response, then maybe we can shame him into either fixing the places or selling them to me.”
Mavis’s eyes widened. “All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Can you do that?”
“I can’t think of a better way to spend some of Blaine Wagner’s money,” Cathy said.
Mavis nodded. “Do you think they might cooperate with us…let me take pictures of everything that’s broken inside their houses…and take pictures of them?”
“We can only ask,” Cathy said. “We have an absentee slumlord situation in Blessings that is appalling. I can’t believe it’s been let go this long, and I said so to Peanut Butterman.”
“Then I’m willing to run the story, but I need to get background on the landlord and contact information for him, too.”
“I can furnish that,” Cathy said. “Call it Operation Christmas Rescue, and talk to Barrie Lemons. She’s the young woman I took home. Tell her I’m trying to contact their landlord to force him to either fix the properties or sell them to me so I can.”
Mavis nodded. “We’ll work on this together and see how it goes. I’ll go down there later and look around for myself.”
“Awesome,” Cathy said, and took out her phone and gave Mavis all the information Peanut had given her. “Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help.”
Mavis grinned. She liked Cathy Terry, but now she was getting a glimpse of a whole other layer to her personality.
Cathy went home, happier than she’d been in years. She had a purpose and the means with which to achieve a difference in people’s lives. Now she just needed R.L. Meiner to respond.
* * *
A whole week passed without a response from the landlord, but Mavis Webb had gone into full documentary mode, made friends with Barrie Lemons and a half-dozen other residents of the Bottoms, and was on a mission to get their stories and pictures of them and their living conditions, while Cathy was torn between two different passions—Duke, and her new project at the Bottoms.
* * *
The Bailey property was officially Talbot land now. The Bailey family had cleared the house of all the furniture, leaving it a shell of its former self.
The renovation budget was in place, and the first thing Duke did was hire a crew of painters to give the two white wings of the house a fresh coat of paint and roofers to repair the broken shingles that had been damaged during the hurricane.
He had a friend in Savannah who hooked him up with a reputable contractor named George, and now George and his reno team were gutting the kitchen and widening the opening between it and the formal dining room.
The house was being transformed, and so was Cathy. She was fast becoming a fixture down in the Bottoms. Even though the landlord was still silent, that didn’t mean she couldn’t help them, and she began with the house Barrie Lemons was renting.
She started by replacing the heater, repairing floors and replacing windows, then a new roof and insulation blown into the attic.
Little by little, she was refurbishing the house, replacing appliances that didn’t work, and putting decent furniture inside the house.
After Barrie’s house was done, Cathy upped her game and hired four separate crews working full time in the Bottoms, with two paint crews, plumbers, and two crews that did flooring and tile.
The residents were ecstatic. Having decent living conditions, appliances that worked, and creature comforts was giving all of them a new sense of pride in themselves.
When Cathy found out about the large number of the men living there who had lost their jobs when their vehicles needed repairs they couldn’t afford, she hired them to work on the project.
In the midst of all that, she was picking out colors and tiles and flooring for her and Duke’s own house, running her selections by Duke during the evenings, and shopping and ordering local, or ordering online for delivery on the jobs.
She hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, but she was afraid to go back to Savannah. One day she’d have to face that fear,