The Painted Lady

The snow—a heavy blanket smothering roofs, roads, onion fields, pasture. But Vic’s main concern is the roofs. He’s brought along a twenty-three-year-old Junior to save his bad back a little pain by shoveling off those of his rentals before they collapse under all that weight. But first, a pit stop on the way.

The call came, unexpected, that morning. This opportunity from the sister, Inga, one-half inheritor of her family’s Canadian timber fortune. Is Vic still available? Does he still have the plow? They’d almost forgotten about the house altogether. Turned out the bank didn’t foreclose on their place after all. Left to sit for nearly a decade, she and her brother still own it: the Painted Lady. The one just up past Sooner’s Orchard. Remember? Of course he does.

Junior rubs a porthole in the window and watches the orchards pass. The apple trees collect into gnarled, black cages on the hills. Even with chains on the truck’s tires, the driving is slow, the road yet to be sufficiently plowed and salted.

“Are you even listening,” Vic says to him. “I’m trying to teach you. Something important that’ll supplement your interests. Keep your dreams afloat in desperate times. The customer doesn’t buy your work. They buy you. You need to sell them. These people are rich. Crazy. The best kind.”

“I thought they only called about a plow,” says Junior, his breath pulsing across the frozen window.

Vic lowers his head to peer through the slot of visibility provided by the muttering dashboard defroster. “Never mind the plow. That’s just getting your foot in the door,” he says, and begins an outline of the work he’s done for these people: the Olsen twins—Inga and Otto. Mythical people Junior has only heard rumors of.

“Carpentry, painting, yard work, gardening—you name it. Didn’t matter,” he continues. “Back then I was willing to do anything for a buck. Between your mother selling her vegetables and me painting houses, we could barely make our rehab loan payments. There was this urgency. They had me to work from the outside in. But disappeared before I could get to the inside part. Vanished. Still paid the down payment on my first rental property, though. Hell, they paid for your diapers. If you play your cards right, they’ll pay for yours, too. Maybe another fixer-upper. Just wait. Soon enough you’ll care plenty about expenses. These people really are crazy with money—when you can catch them . . .”

Through the porthole, Junior watches the apple trees drop away into seamless white horse pasture, the top rung of the fence riding above the snow alongside the road, bobbing and snaking with an unevenness accentuated by the flatness of the snow, his father talking still. Talking, talking, as always—trying to drag back to earth any daydream of a thought. Until an incomprehensible sound issues from Junior’s mouth.

“Don’t interrupt,” Vic says.

“But the Sooner’s barn—” says Junior.

“This is important—”

“Collapsed,” continues Junior. “Completely gone. I hope Sooner managed to save the horses—”

“We’re almost there and I’m trying to teach you something—” But then Vic sees it, too. Or worse, yet, doesn’t. Sooner’s barn. Where it should be—where it isn’t—has been replaced by a small mound of snow porcupined with jagged boards. Now he makes an incomprehensible sound himself, a clipped window of worry slamming shut.

“See,” says Junior.

“I do,” says Vic, already turning back to the wheel. “I’m sure Sooner put those horses up somewhere.”

“Sooner doesn’t even put up the dogs,” says Junior.

“Never mind about the horses, never mind about the dogs,” says Vic, and blinkers the turn signal. “We’re here. Look alive.” And with a mechanical whir, he engages the plow.

About half a mile off, the Painted Lady burns yellow against the snow. Vic works his way along the driveway whose bounds he must guess at with small bites from the plow. Swath after swath, he crushes the snow into berms, the distant farmhouse lurching higher with every bite into a sheer cliff of tri-colored peaks, a spectacle toward which they need to crane their necks. The detail truly something to admire. Its variety of shingle shapes—tears, spear-tips, hearts. Each painted a different color. Ornate molding, still somehow well-defined, as if milled yesterday. Even after all these years. The intricacy of trim, especially. Accentuated by Vic’s brushwork. The way it snakes the yellow body with clashing colors of viridian and midnight blues, regal purples. Each shot through with one another. In conversation with the Victorian yellow. Each nook and turret, the balusters and façades.

“It’s called a Painted Lady,” Vic says, shifting the truck into park.

“You’ve told me that a thousand times,” Junior replies.

Vic opens his mouth to say something about how the boy should be more grateful. That Vic didn’t need to plow these people out, didn’t need their money. Not only was he doing Junior a favor, he was sacrificing a good man. He couldn’t justify paying Junior the kind of money these people could. Didn’t Junior realize? Wasn’t he mature enough now? He thought they’d grow past this indifference once he returned home from Costa Rica. If only he thought for just one second.

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From Foreclosure Gothic by Harris Lahti. Copyright © 2025 by Harris Lahti.