I walked slowly through the dining room, my fingers lightly skimming the top of an elegant eighteenth-century sideboard with Queen Anne legs and detailed marquetry bordering the small drawers. A heavily tarnished silver tea service sat on top, and I’d already discovered that the drawers were filled with sterling flatware with handles embellished with vines of roses and the letter “H.”
As I’d taken inventory of all the rooms, I realized that the old house contained a fortune in antiques and art, presumably acquired by a family that had called this place home for generations. But Gibbes didn’t seem to have warm feelings about it, as if there were too many dark spaces clouding his memories. I felt them, too, the shadows that seemed to move and twitch right beyond my field of vision. But I also felt a warmth, a sense of family and belonging that must have been included in each floorboard and each nail when it was built all those years ago. It was almost as if the house were waiting for someone to shine light into all of its corners.
I had been an art history major and then a curator of a small art museum in Farmington, Maine, but that made me no expert. The museum also contained pieces of furniture donated or collected from the area, the legs thicker and bolder, the wood darker and grainier than the almost dainty furniture in this house. It had made me think of the long, hard winters in Maine, and I couldn’t imagine this delicate furniture surviving in such a brutal environment.
These were family heirlooms, treasures that I owned but had no real claim to. Gibbes had expressed no interest in anything except personal mementos, but I would have to insist. I didn’t want any burning resentment to link us together. I wanted to give him what was his and cut ties completely. I wanted to be alone, needed to be alone. I’d already spent a lifetime loving people and losing them.
I sat down for a moment on a Chippendale sofa with faded blue and white Chinese silk upholstery, resting my clipboard on my lap. I was waiting to show Gibbes the inventory list I had made, and had even included a column for him to check off the items he wanted. I tilted my head back, not minding the whir of the new air-conditioning unit as long as the cold air blew on my face and dried the sweat on my cheeks and forehead. The HVAC man had looked at me oddly when I mentioned that it surely couldn’t get any hotter outside than it already was. He’d reminded me that it was only May.
I was the happy owner of six unsightly window units, which would make the house bearable while I determined when the best time to install the new central heating and air system would be. The estimate I’d received was more than I’d been expecting, but at that point he could have charged me three times the amount and I would have gladly paid it. For somebody with a genetic predisposition to keep the wallet strings tightened at all times, that was saying something.
The doorbell rang and I spent a moment mentally preparing myself before standing up and answering it. Gibbes smiled when he saw me, but it was the kind of smile one gives to his dentist right before a tooth is pulled.
He paused in the foyer under the beautiful fluted arch that separated the doorway from the rest of the entrance. “Is that a cool breeze I feel?”
“It is. I had new AC units installed in the study and front parlor to create a cross breeze, and I added a new one in the dining room, two more upstairs in Owen’s and Loralee’s bedrooms, and one in the attic. It makes the house almost bearable.”
“It’s not that hot, you know. It’s still spring. You might want to leave the windows open so you can get acclimated before summer gets here.”
I wasn’t sure whether he was trying to prepare me or scare me, so I didn’t say anything. Instead I handed him the inventory list. “Here’s everything in the house—excluding the kitchen and garden. You’re welcome to go through those yourself if you think there’s anything there you might want. Or I’m sure Loralee would be happy to do it.”
He looked at me sharply, and I wondered whether my tone of voice had given me away. Loralee had been so excruciatingly helpful with the inventorying. She was like a diligent little worker bee who did what was needed and didn’t require any direction. She was efficient, organized, and—for lack of a better word—cheerful. She took frequent naps, but her sleeping habits didn’t interfere with her productivity any more than her propensity to wear high heels and makeup every waking hour did.
To my shame, I knew I was looking for reasons to dislike her—as if I didn’t have enough—but kept coming up empty. Even more shameful was that that just made me even more put-out. I responded by avoiding her as best I could, which turned out to be easier than I’d anticipated. It had only just occurred to me that she might also be avoiding me.
“Where is Loralee? I wanted to let her and Owen know that we’re definitely on for boating this weekend.” He opened his mouth to say something else, but hesitated, his expression like that of a person who’d just bitten into something rotten. After a moment, he said, “And I’d like to extend the invitation to you, too.”