I think it eould be 17 feet. 5 plus 8 plus 4 is 17.
For this case we have the following expression:

For simplicity we follow the steps:
We apply distributive property to the terms within the parenthesis, bearing in mind that:

We add similar terms taking into account that equal signs are added and the same sign is placed, while different signs are subtracted and the sign of the major is placed.

ANswer:

Absolute value is simply the distance from zero on a number line. -44 is 44 away from zero, so the absolute value of -44 is
44