“Well, that seemed to go okay,” Sybil commented to her husband as she lay on the bed and smiled at him.
“They’ll get used to it in no time, especially once they get busy at school,” he reassured her and lay down next to her. He was tired and knew he had a heavy day of meetings the next day. He was happy that his family was in San Francisco with him now, and Sybil was pleased too. They fell asleep in each other’s arms that night, and she could hear him in the shower when she woke up in the morning. They had the only proper shower in the house. The others all had tubs, with handheld showers added, which Andy had complained about and Caro loved. Blake had told Andy he could use theirs.
Sybil noticed, as she waited for Blake to emerge from the bathroom, that he had managed to open the window that had been stuck the night before. The painters had painted it shut, and neither of them had been able to open it before they went to bed. She had planned to ask José to do it, but now she didn’t have to. It was a sunny day, but the air was cool outside and felt fresh in the room. When Blake emerged from his dressing room, ready for the office, she thanked him for unsticking the window.
“I didn’t. Maybe it just worked itself open after we played with it last night,” he said blithely and headed downstairs. She forgot about it when she followed him to make breakfast, while he read the paper that had been delivered to their door. He preferred reading The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal online at the office, but had ordered the local paper for her.
They talked about his meetings that day, and he left a little while later. She kissed him goodbye in the great hall, and they both smiled at the Butterfield portraits they had hung there: Bertrand and Gwyneth, the couple who had built the house, a daunting old dowager in an elaborate gown with a fierce expression, wearing a tiara, and an older man in a kilt. Sybil wondered if those two were Bertrand’s or Gwyneth’s parents. And there were portraits of two pretty young girls in white dresses, a young man in a military uniform with a wistful expression, and a little boy who looked full of mischief and a little bit like Charlie. It made her think that she really wanted to get to Bettina’s book and find out who they all were. It surprised her that none of their descendants had wanted the portraits and had left them with the house. They were respectable works by different artists, and added dignity to the front hall. The Gregory children had looked at them when they walked in, but didn’t inquire who they were. They were too excited by the rest of the house.
Sybil walked toward the grand staircase to go upstairs, after Blake left for work, she noticed that two of the tables in the front hall had been moved from where she and Blake had wanted to place them when they came from storage, and she wondered if he had moved them. The tables had been switched to opposite sides of the room, but she had to admit they looked better in their new locations as she stopped to examine them for a minute, and then hurried upstairs to get dressed. She and the children had a busy day ahead too.
The children turned up in her room half an hour later, and they went downstairs so she could make their breakfast. They were still eating when Alicia and José arrived, and she introduced them to the children. They were warm and kind, and Charlie liked them immediately. A short time later, Sybil took the children out in the rented van. She was going to keep it until they bought her SUV.
She showed them all the sights, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Alcatraz sitting in the bay. They followed a cable car downtown on California Street to the Embarcadero, and drove past Fisherman’s Wharf, up to Coit Tower and then around Union Square, and back up to Nob Hill, and then walked through Chinatown, looked at all the souvenir stores and markets, before they had lunch at Ghirardelli Square.
They had noticed a skating rink set up in Union Square, still there after the holidays, and she promised to take Caroline and Charlie skating that weekend. Andy wanted to go to a Warriors basketball game with Blake. After lunch, she drove Caroline and Andy past their new school, which wasn’t far from their house. She explained to Charlie again that he’d be picked up by a school bus every day, at a nearby stop, since his school was in Marin County across the Golden Gate Bridge.
They seemed satisfied with their new city, and kept occupied in their rooms when they got home, while Sybil spent some time with José and Alicia, and told them what she wanted done first. They had been working there for several weeks, under Blake’s direction. Out of curiosity, she asked them if they had switched the tables in the front hall and they said they hadn’t, so she knew it must have been Blake, which was fine. She didn’t want anyone else changing the décor on their own.
Sybil had dinner on the table when Blake got home from work. It was already beginning to feel like home. The children told him everything they’d done, and he was impressed. And they were planning to drive around Marin County the next day, and drive past Charlie’s school too. He was a little nervous about it, since he’d never seen it and had no friends there, and Sybil thought a drive by might help.
They all played Monopoly after dinner, and everyone was in good spirits when they went up to their rooms. The move was going much more smoothly than Sybil had expected, and she tried to organize her own dressing room that night. She still had shoes everywhere when she finally gave up and decided to finish the next day. She had lain down next to Blake on the bed and was dozing when he shook the bed from side to side. She turned to look at him with a puzzled expression when he woke her up with the sudden movement.
“What are you doing?” She’d already been half asleep.
“Nothing.” He seemed perplexed, and just as he said it, a violent jolt shifted back and forth and nearly threw them out of bed. The chandelier in their bedroom began swinging and they both realized what had happened, and was still happening.
“Oh shit! You lied to me!” she shouted at Blake, as she ran to get Charlie, who was wide awake and terrified in his room. It was an earthquake, and Sybil had no idea what to do. She pulled him toward her own room, as Andy and Caroline came running down the hall from their rooms, looking scared, just as the shaking stopped. It had lasted less than a minute, but felt like forever. And Sybil had noticed a horrible groaning sound that seemed to come from the ground outside while it was going on. She had never been so frightened in her life. The chandeliers were still swinging, and Sybil stared at Blake in terror. “Do you think that’s just the prelude to a bigger one?” she asked, still shaking from head to foot, as Charlie clung to her, and the other two children stood in her bedroom, panicked.