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It took two months before the insurance company cleared the way for our payment for losses due to the fire. Randolph Bentley had been arrested the next day on suspicion of arson, and there was enough evidence that he was the culprit in the opinion of the local Crown Prosecutor. He was held without bail since he was already up on charges for impaired driving and uttering threats. He was considered both a flight risk and a risk to re-offend. It would be some time before he would see the light of day.
Dory and I resumed our lives, renting a small one-bedroom suite. The insurance company settlement repaid us for all the monetary costs, more than enough to replace everything we had lost. They also included Paul's services, but there was no repayment for the emotional turmoil and stress that the fire and Bentley's antics had caused.
Another pleasant surprise was the settlement from Elite Education. After Paul's fees, we had seventy thousand dollars to put in the bank, far more than we were led to expect. It would be the down payment on a house and the furnishings.
As Spring set in, we spent every weekend looking for a proper place to live. We had decided that if we could, we would buy. We now had some money for a down payment. In discussions with our bank manager (the same one that Arnold was dealing with) we knew what our spending limit was and we tasked Mr. Albert Feller with finding us something suitable. We had neither the time nor the inclination to buy a "fixer-upper" and made sure our agent knew that.
The biggest single decision we made was to postpone the wedding until our lives were more settled. We had originally thought mid-May to early June, but neither of us was ready for the work and planning that went into this important event. In discussions with our parents, they agreed. They had been horrified at the events we had gone through this past winter and understood completely that we weren't emotionally ready for what would be a once-in-a-lifetime event. Fortunately, nothing had been spent that couldn't be held over until the late summer, our next chosen time. We were thinking late August, but circumstances would throw a monkey wrench into that plan as well.
"Hello, Steve. It's Albert Feller calling. I think I might have found the home you've been looking for."
"Oh ... really? Tell me more," I said.
"It's a three bedroom, two bath bungalow on a big lot, half way between Bates Beach and Little River. It's well within the budget you set. Are you interested in looking at it?"
"Yes, of course. That's an ideal location for Dory. When can we see it?"
"Will tomorrow afternoon at two o'clock work?"
"I'm sure it will. I'm working Saturday, but I can get off for a couple of hours. Sherry can look after things until I get back."
"Good. Then I'll meet you at the store and we can go from there."
Dory was excited, of course. It was the first lead on a house in our price range in over a month. Albert had done a fine job of screening out the type of home we would have no interest in. He was good at following our direction and didn't waste our time with places we would never buy.
"I hope this doesn't turn out to be a disappointment," Dory said as we waited for Albert to arrive at the store.
"Keep your fingers crossed. The price is in the low two-hundreds, so it fits our budget. It's been on the market for a while and the owner may be anxious to sell. They thought they had a sale but it fell through. I've seen it before but I don't remember the details. Let's just see what it's like."
Albert was right on time and drove us out to Bates Road and the listed house. It looked good from the outside. It was twenty years old. Vinyl siding with a sound roof. A conventional rectangular building from what I could see. The lot was impressive. It was listed at 8650 sq. ft., most of it lawn with a few cedars along one side and a view of the mountains on the mainland. There was plenty of space between neighbours. My first impression was good and Dory agreed.
Inside, it was a box, forty-eight feet wide and thirty-six feet deep. There was no basement. Nothing remarkable about it at all. Drywall everywhere, carpet in every room except for linoleum in the kitchen, laundry room, and bathrooms. All the walls were painted off-white and the carpeting was beige. A simulated tile pattern on the kitchen and laundry room floor and a white and black small pattern in the bathrooms. Cabinets were white melamine finish and the countertop was a textured tan colour.
Looking out the kitchen window, I could see a back deck that looked like it was about twenty by ten, not too bad considering. The house had been kept in very good condition and was reasonably clean throughout. The previous owners had moved out a couple of months ago, having been transferred to Nova Scotia. He was an air force navigator on the long range patrol aircraft.
"So what's your impression?" Albert asked.
"It's clean and in good condition," Dory said immediately.
"Steve?" Albert said, turning to me.
"Boring," I said, almost wishing I hadn't.
"Don't you like it?" Dory asked, looking dismayed.
"I don't dislike it, but I don't love it either," I admitted. "It has no character. On the other hand, it's in great condition, clean, on a great lot, and a great location. We'd be crazy not to think about it carefully."
"I can see a lot of potential for giving it some character," Albert said. "A bit of landscaping, some paint, wallpaper maybe, a laminate floor in the living-dining room, maybe the kitchen too."
"Exactly!" Dory exclaimed. "There's nothing we can't do, Stevie. It's a perfect starter home for us."
I turned to her and smiled. She had made up her mind, and that helped me make up mine as well.
"Well, should we put in an offer ... and if we do ... for how much?"
"It's listed for two-twenty-nine," Albert said, "but I'd like to offer two-fifteen and see if we can get it for that or maybe something between. Can you handle that?"
"Yes," I said. "We're all set up with the bank. That's actually less than we expected to pay, so we'll have some wiggle room if we need it."
"Stevie, if we can get if for that, we can afford to make the changes we talked about. We could make this a great home for us."
"Yeah, I think the time to do that is before we moved in, though. I don't want to be in the middle of renovations or painting all the time. I want us to come home from work and be able to enjoy our home."
"That would be nice," Dory agreed.
"Okay then, Albert. Why don't you write up the offer and let's see what happens."
Dory was jumping up and down with joy. "This is so exciting," she gushed, grabbing me and kissing me. Albert had a satisfied smile on his face. This hadn't been hard at all.
Albert called back Monday evening. The owners, the Department of National Defence, had agreed to the submitted offer with occupancy at the beginning of May, only three weeks away.
"Are you kidding? They didn't even counter-offer?" I said in amazement.
"Nope. After all, it isn't real money," he said cynically. "I know they have some guidelines as to what they would or wouldn't accept. We were within their usual range, so they accepted. That's better than you hoped, I assume."
"Definitely!" I said with some enthusiasm. We now had some room to make the changes I wanted to make before we moved in. But first things first, we had to give our landlord notice.
"Let's go look at flooring for the living room, dining area and kitchen," she said, still on a high.
"Haven't you forgotten something?" I asked gently.
"What?"
"Furniture."
"Oh, yeah. You're right. Which comes first?"
"The floors and the painting. Then the furniture," I said with a grin, not wanting to dampen the mood.
"When do you see us moving in?" she asked.
"At the end of May. That gives us over a month to do all the things we need to do and the time to do them."
That brought about another big smile, a deep kiss and a loving hug. The good stuff would be a little later when we went to bed.
Albert handed us the keys on Thursday evening, May 1, 1997. Dory took them and held them in her hand, just looking at them. I had bought a half-bottle of sparkling white wine to celebrate and poured a glass each to celebrate our first home. Now we would have a permanent residence when we married. Perhaps it seemed backwards to some people, but circumstances dictated we do this our way. Neither of us had any regrets.
Friday night we ripped up the carpet we planned to replace and threw it out in the back of my pickup for deposit in the landfill in Cumberland. We had chosen our flooring at the local lumber yard and decided we could install it ourselves. I bought a good quality chop saw along with a circular saw and a portable work bench. A rubber hammer and a good tape measure were enough to do the flooring. Bedroom number three would be the workroom while we did the renovations. Two pieces of plywood and a tarp would protect the floor.
Saturday morning the work began and I think we amazed ourselves that it was done by three that afternoon. I re-attached the baseboards and we stood in the middle of the area, looking around. Dory turned to me and gave me a "high five" as a salute to a job well done. I was the first to admit, it looked good.
A week later, we had finished the painting the living room and three bedrooms and had only the kitchen and bathrooms to do. The colours that Dory had chosen really changed my perception of the home. She said curtains would make it even better and I believed her. She was busy buying material for them, borrowing a sewing machine from Miranda to hem and size them. I didn't know she had the skill, but she did a great job. Just another hidden talent in my future bride.
Future bride? We were living like we were married. Same house, same bed, same food, same everything ... well ... almost everything. I think we'd finally convinced ourselves that the worst of our troubles were behind us. Bentley was in jail and not likely to be let out any time soon. We'd found our home and we had some idea of our future together. We invited our parents to a "housewarming party" the first weekend in June and they immediately accepted. Pam and Nana were included and would be "camping out" in the living room on a hide-a-bed we had purchased used. The furnishings were still sparse, but the house looked entirely different thanks to Dory's domestic touch.
There was just enough room for the eight of us around our new dining room table. Food preparation was done in shifts with our two mothers and Pam taking a lot of the load off Dory.
"We have one very important objective this weekend," my father said. "You need to set a date for the wedding and stick with it this time," he chuckled.
Everyone knew of our trials and troubles, but the less said about the past the better. We were looking forward and this family get-together was all about that.
"If we leave it to the men, you'll be lucky if they agree by Christmas," Nana laughed.
"True," Simone Paulson chimed in. "Girls, we will get this done."
The date chosen was Saturday, August 23rd.
"That's less than three months. We're going to have to get a move on," my mother said.
"Where are we going to have the ceremony?" I asked. That seemed to stop everyone cold.
"I'd like to have it here," Dory said quietly, almost afraid of the reaction.
No one said anything and I was about to agree with Dory when Nana spoke.
"That's exactly what I was thinking," she said firmly. "That little Anglican church down the road might be available."
"Let's find out," Simone said. She picked up the local phone book, found the number and called.
The conversation was short and sweet. Yes, it was available early that afternoon. There was another wedding scheduled for four o'clock. Step one was complete.
The ladies organized a buffet for Sunday noon. We had invited the Ildebruns, Jonathan and his wife Penny, Sherry and Bob Winstead and Phyllis Yardley. Everyone mixed well and it was almost five before the party broke up. No one was in the mood for dinner, so we settled for snacks and leftovers from the buffet. My only regret was that Eddie and Arnold couldn't be here to celebrate with us.
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