“Yep, I can see that. My son, Tilman, is under the house right now checking the foundation. Is it okay if I pull up some of this carpet, and maybe knock a hole or two in the drywall?” he asked.

“Do whatever you need to do,” Stevie said with a grimace.

“I’ll bring in my tools then,” he said.

Stevie had expected that the carpet would have to be taken out, but it didn’t make it any easier to watch Bobby pile the soggy furniture to one side. He rolled the wet carpet to the middle of the room and slowly shook his head.

“Where are you, Tilman?” he yelled.

“Right here, Dad.” A guy who looked like a younger version of Bobby, only his coveralls were muddy, entered through the front door. “Go ahead with whatever you need to do up here, but it sure doesn’t look good under this place. Of course, it’s muddy, but, Miz O’Dell, you’ve got a bad case of termites under there, as well as black mold.”

Bobby drew back a claw hammer and knocked a hole in the wet part of the Sheetrock. Chunks of it crumbled like chalk, and more disintegrated as he pulled half a sheet free. He shook his head in disappointment and pointed to the studs. “I was trying to give you a little bit of hope, but I’m sorry, Stevie. See the Swiss cheese look in these studs? If this house was a person, I would tell you that it has bone cancer. This is dry rot.” He pointed to part of the two studs, and then to the wet part below that. “And that is black mold.”

Stevie looked at the mess and wondered if that had caused her mother’s cancer to start or to be worse. She knew the house had to come down, but knowing did not lessen the disappointment one bit.

“I remember when you were a little girl riding your bicycle up and down this road with your red ponytail swinging back and forth,” Bobby said. “I knew your daddy and your mama very well. Your dad and my mama worked together at the bank. I don’t like to have to tell you this, Stevie, but this house is not worth saving. You should have it torn down and have the ground treated to get rid of the termites. Then you can either rebuild right here or sell the lot, and that’s my honest opinion on just what I’ve seen here.”

“I was afraid that’s what you would say.” She sighed. “Thinking about doing that isn’t easy, though.”