I would have to hire someone to haul that away next week.

Frank knelt by the kitchen door, his tools clinking against the linoleum floor.

“This lock is even older,” he murmured.

“It still has the skeleton key design.”

“Can you make it secure?” I asked.

“Oh, absolutely,” he said. “I’ll install a modern deadbolt right above it.”

“It will require drilling a hole through the wood, if that’s alright with you.”

“Do whatever you need to do to make it safe,” I said.

He took out a heavy electric drill and a hole-saw attachment.

The loud, grinding screech of the drill cutting through the wood filled the small kitchen.

Scented sawdust, smelling of old pine and lacquer, drifted down to the floor.

I watched the yellow wood shavings pile up around his boots.

It felt like a physical cleansing of the house.

Every hole drilled, every screw tightened, was a barrier placed between me and the people who had tried to steal this place.

“There you go,” Frank said, brushing the sawdust off his pants.

He turned the thumb latch on the new deadbolt.