My first impression was of vastness, of high ceilings and thick baseboards, of a wide and deep foyer with four tall, thick doors opening on two sides, a narrow hallway leading toward the back of the house. A delicate banister of dark wood held aloft by slender spindles curved its way to the second floor, cradling an enormous crystal chandelier that had more cobwebs than working lights. It smelled of dust and age and neglect, and I finally understood Mr. Williams’s reluctance to allow me to move right in.
But I saw beauty, too, hidden under the dust and dark shadows. I saw it in the intricately carved ceiling medallions and door cornices, in the broken inlaid wood floors of the dining room and marble pilasters that separated the two parlors. It was there in the graceful sweep of the solid-wood banister and in the tall rice poster beds of the bedrooms upstairs.
Everything reeked of dust, but I couldn’t help remembering the feeling I’d had staring up at the house, as if it were considering me as much as I was considering it. The sense of expectation, of us both waiting for something to happen. The feeling dogged my steps until I realized I was holding my breath and imagined the house doing the same thing.
Mr. Williams opened a door to the main bathroom upstairs, and I stayed back, having already been warned—and knowing from seeing just inside the door the chipped marble floor tiles and antiquated claw-foot bathtub—that although the house had modern plumbing and electricity, nothing much had changed in a very long time.
“Which was Cal’s room?” I asked, my voice sounding loud in the quiet house.
“This one,” the lawyer said as he moved to the end of the hallway and pushed open a door. The heat poured out of the room, keeping me at the threshold just long enough to see the twin bed and a large chest at its foot. LEGO models covered bookshelves and a small desk under the window, sharing room with school textbooks. A dog-eared copy of Huckleberry Finn sat on the nightstand. I stared at it, not recalling ever seeing Cal read a book.
“It’s like he never left,” I said, unaware I’d spoken out loud.
“When he left so suddenly, it broke Edith’s heart. She’d never been a happy person, but her grandsons brought a lot of light into her life.”
“What about Gibbes—Cal’s brother? Did he have a good relationship with Edith?”
We stepped out of the room and Mr. Williams closed the door, pausing with his hands on the doorknob for a moment while he thought. “They did. Up until Cal left. Gibbes was only about ten at the time, but I think he blamed Edith for making Cal leave. As soon as Gibbes went off to college and med school, he barely came home. Sometimes he would stay with us instead of staying here on his school breaks—he and my sons were good friends. And I don’t think it was all his choice, either. After Cal left, Edith just sort of . . . closed up shop, I guess. She told me . . .” He stopped as if remembering to whom he was speaking.
“She told you what?” I asked. “I’m sorry to be so blunt, but Cal was my husband. I’m just . . . I’m trying to make sense of all this.”
He nodded slowly. “She said that Gibbes was better off with us than with her. That she’d failed twice to raise good men and she wanted Gibbes to have a chance. This was still his home, but Edith made sure that he spent a lot of time with us. She thought that we were his only chance to have a happy, normal life. I’m not sure I agreed, but there was nothing I could do to persuade her otherwise. And Gibbes seemed to enjoy having brothers around, especially after Cal left.” He paused, his thoughts turned inward. “I do know that she loved Gibbes very much. Enough to send him away.”
I could see that Mr. Williams didn’t understand what she’d meant any more than I did, so I didn’t press. “But why would Gibbes blame Edith? What could she have done to make Cal leave?”
Mr. Williams shrugged. “She never confided in me.” Patting my arm, he said, “And I guess now we’ll never know.”
We were headed back toward the staircase when I paused in front of a closed door that we hadn’t gone through yet. “What’s in here?”
Mr. Williams tried the knob. “I’m not really sure, to be honest. I imagine it’s the stairs to the attic, since we haven’t run across those yet. Don’t know why the key’s missing, though. All the other doors have their keys in the locks, and I know I wasn’t given any extras. I know a good locksmith and I’ll send him over. I’m sure it’s only old furniture and clothes up there, but you never know.” He winked, as if a surprise in the attic might make up for the rest of the house.
I put my hand on his arm. “It’s fine, you know. The house. I think . . .” I stopped myself from telling him that I felt the house had been waiting for me, that maybe we had been waiting for each other, each needing our dust and cobwebs cleaned out. “I think I’ll enjoy setting it all to rights.”
He smiled, looking relieved. With one last look at the locked door, we made our way down the stairs, Mr. Williams holding my elbow whether I needed it or not.
It was at least twenty degrees cooler downstairs with the air-conditioning units in the dining room and front parlor blowing out air that, while not exactly cold, was better than the heat from upstairs.