The path leading to our borrowed villa was covered in small, smooth stones. They were brown and uniform in size, and although they were clearly selected for their appearance and how well they fit the landscaping, it was refreshingly obvious that the grounds were meant to be enjoyed, not treated as a precious museum piece. Flower beds and urns lined both sides of the path, each spilling over with bright, colorful blossoms. There were trees everywhere, and off in the distance was a little seating area, screened from the rest of the yard by a wall of blooming vines.
Truly, I had never seen a more beautiful country home. The house was a soft red, the color of faded clay, and weathered to an absolutely gorgeous effect. White shutters framed the tall windows on the first and second floors, and more vibrant flowers lined beds against the doors. The perfume in the air was a mixture of ocean and peony.
Bougainvillea crawled up a trellis and framed the French provincial-inspired narrow double doorway. The top step was cracked, but swept clean, and a simple, soft green mat lay atop the sun-bleached concrete.
I turned, looking behind me at the yard. In the far corner and beneath several fig trees, a long table was covered in a brilliant orange tablecloth, the tabletop decorated simply with a narrow line of tiny blue bottles of different shapes and sizes. Clean white plates were spaced at even intervals, waiting for a dinner party to appear. A green lawn stretched to where I stood on the narrow porch, broken only by the occasional inground planter bursting with purple, yellow, and pink flowers.
I pulled the key from my pocket and entered the house. From the outside, it was clearly large, but it almost seemed to expand like an optical illusion inside.
Christ, Max, this seems a little excessive. I knew his house in the Provence region was large, but I didn’t realize there were so many fucking rooms. Just from the front door, I could see at least a dozen doorways connecting off the main hall, and doubtless there were countless other rooms upstairs and out of sight.
I paused in the entryway, staring at the enormous urn that looked like the larger cousin to a small vase my mother had in her dining room hutch; the cerulean blue base glaze was identical, and the same beautiful yellow lines bled down its curved sides. I remembered the gift from when Max brought it for my mother the first time he’d come home with me, over the winter holidays. I hadn’t realized at the time how personal the hostess gift had been to him, but now, looking around his vacation home, I could see the same artist’s work everywhere: in plates mounted above the mantel, in a handmade teapot and a set of simple cups on a tray in the parlor.
I smiled, reaching out to touch the urn. Chloe would completely lose it when she saw it; it was her favorite thing in my mother’s house. A feeling overcame me that we were almost fated to have come here.
After her birthday dinner in January, Chloe hesitated in the dining room, glancing at Mom’s impressive art collection in the hutch. But instead of going for the obvious gleam of the Tiffany vases or the intricate detail of the carved wooden bowls, she went straight for a tiny blue vase in the corner.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen this color before,” she said, awestruck. “I didn’t think this color existed outside of the imagination.”
Mom walked over, pulled it from the shelf. Under the soft light of the chandelier, the color seemed to almost wink and change even as Chloe held it still in her hand. I’d never noticed before how pretty the piece was.
“It’s one of my favorites,” Mom admitted, smiling. “I’ve never seen anything this color anywhere else either.”
But that wasn’t entirely true, I thought, as I stepped away from the urn and walked to the mantel. The ocean here was that color, when the sun was high over the horizon and the sky was clear. Only then did it hit that exact same blue, like the heart of the deepest sapphire. An artist who lived here would know that.