Chapter 9 - We tested the mansion
I wanted Mercer House sealed immediately.
Authorities did not operate on my emotions.
An independent environmental firm entered under legal agreement.
State personnel observed portions.
The original Lake & Brower consultant provided files.
Samples were collected from multiple areas.
Subsurface.
Air.
Utility spaces.
West wing.
East wing.
Outside.
I was not allowed to direct sampling.
Good.
I would have told them to tear up every floor.
The strongest abnormalities were concentrated beneath the west wing.
Specifically:
A sealed sub-basement chamber behind an old mechanical corridor.
I had never entered it.
Neither had Genevieve.
The mansion had been renovated six times across seventy years.
My grandfather purchased it in 1978.
Before the property became exclusively residential, the rear section had been used for equipment storage connected to one of the Mercer industrial businesses.
The sub-basement contained old drums.
Not leaking dramatically across the floor.
Not glowing.
Corroded containers and contaminated soil beneath a concrete cap.
Records suggested industrial solvent waste had been stored or discarded there decades earlier.
Vapor intrusion had migrated upward through utility penetrations.
Why the west wing?
The oldest foundation.
Shared vertical service chase.
A renovation nine years earlier had unintentionally changed air pressure patterns.
Environmental engineers explained it using diagrams.
The summary:
Contaminants moved into occupied space.
Genevieve’s suite sat above the strongest pathway.
So did the twins’ bedroom.
My bedroom was technically in the same suite.
Why wasn’t I sick?
Exposure is not equal.
I traveled constantly.
Genevieve spent more time there.
The children played in the connected nursery.
Individual susceptibility differs.
I still insisted on testing.
I showed evidence of exposure markers.
Lower than Genevieve’s and the twins’.
High enough that my doctor ordered follow-up.
May you like
That ended the last part of me still whispering:
Maybe coincidence.
