“I already told her about them,” Andy said blithely.
“You did?” His mother looked stunned. “How did you manage that?” She had never told anyone herself, except Michael Stanton at the Berkeley Psychic Institute, and she wouldn’t have known where to start, without having people think they were on drugs or insane.
“I just told her how it happened in the beginning, and what it’s like,” Andy said simply. “Her parents have a castle in the north of Scotland, and she says it’s full of old ghosts and relatives who died there and people they don’t know but everyone thinks they see. It’s not exactly like us and the Butterfields, but she said it sounds like fun.” It was fun, for all of them, in both families, that was the odd part. And after a year and a half, they were all used to it and had adjusted. They seemed to have no trouble living together and straddling two different centuries under one roof.
“I’d like to meet her,” Sybil said about Quinne, and told Blake. Andy seemed serious about the girl.
When the two families were reunited after their vacations, they had lots to talk about: family news, the baby had grown, and Bettina seemed to be bonding with her a little more with some effort. She had spent most of her time in Woodside riding, and looked happier than she had in a year. She was an expert horsewoman, and Josiah was an excellent rider too. They had spent hours on horseback together in Woodside that summer—and she wanted Lili to ride too when she was older. She had lots of plans for her, which Sybil thought was a good sign. Bettina was having a hard time adjusting to motherhood. She didn’t have the maternal instincts of her own mother. In some ways, Bettina was more like Augusta, and was close to her. She and Angus had been in Woodside too, and she complained about the heat there when they returned, and said she was delighted to be back in the fog in San Francisco.
Sybil thought Angus looked tired and was getting more confused, but his sister kept a close eye on him. Augusta was still clear as a bell, at whatever great age she was. She kept it a dark secret. Sybil suspected she was in her mid-to late eighties, and could even be ninety, judging by the way she looked and the events she talked about.
At the end of August, after Andy had returned to Edinburgh for his second year, Sybil took Caroline to UCLA to settle her into the dorms, and she connected with her new friend Max within an hour of her arrival. He helped Sybil carry Caro’s trunks and bags into the dorm, along with her computer, her music system, and the small refrigerator she had rented. He had already been there for two days and knew where everything was. By the time Sybil left the next day, Caroline barely had time to see her. She and Max were having dinner with friends from other dorms that night. She was off and running in her college life.
It was a lonely feeling as Sybil drove back to San Francisco that night, and she was particularly glad that she still had Charlie at home. She wasn’t ready to become an empty nester just yet, and for a minute she wondered if Blake was right to want another baby. But at forty now, she wasn’t sure about it. What if there was something wrong with the child? And it would be hard starting all over again. She loved playing with Lili, but a baby was so much work and needed so much attention. She couldn’t see herself doing it again. Bettina had a full-time nurse and her mother to help her. Sybil would do most of it herself, as she had before. Charlie was easy now, at seven. He’d been lording it over his friend that he was a year older than Magnus, which Magnus had complained about to his mother and she laughed. Sybil knew that was going to continue happening, because Magnus would be six forever.
The house seemed empty without Caroline when Sybil got back to San Francisco, and she sat down to work on her book in earnest. Gwyneth was spending a lot of time with Lili, and working on her computer during the baby’s naps. Bettina had started writing a family history, and asked Augusta for pertinent information, without explaining why. Her grandmother remembered all the details and gossip that no one else did, who was related to whom and how, whom they had married and who died when. Bettina drew a family tree from what Augusta told her, which helped her keep it all straight while she was writing. Sybil knew it would be a fascinating book, and Bettina said it would take her years to finish. Longer than she knew, Sybil realized as she listened to her talk about it, since she had only completed it when she was eighty, in the final years of her life, so she had obviously stopped writing it for a while at some point.
For the next few months, both Bettina and Sybil spent most of their time writing, and the house was very quiet. Blake was staying late at the office, wrestling with the financial ups and downs of his start-up, and consulting with Bert on it for advice.
The battles in Europe had been fierce that fall, but by October there was some hope that the war was drawing to an end. More than eight million men had died and twenty-one million had been wounded on the battlefields of Europe, and on November 11, 1918, the armistice was finally signed, nineteen months after America had entered the war and lost over a hundred thousand men, Josiah Butterfield and Tony Salvatore among them. Tony had never returned as a ghost to join the others at the house. Sybil thought it was better that he hadn’t. Bettina was young and alive, and needed to meet someone from her own world, whom her family thought suitable, and who would be willing to be a father to Lili. From reading Bettina’s book, Sybil knew it would happen in time. In December, Bettina made a shocking announcement at dinner that no one had expected. She had exchanged letters with friends of her parents in Paris, and they had invited her to come over in a few months, after the dust settled, now that the war was over. They were aware that she had been widowed and had a baby, and they thought a change of scene would do her good, and so did she.
“The Margaux?” Gwyneth said, looking shocked. “We haven’t seen them in years. What made you write to them?”
“I have nothing to do here, Mother,” Bettina said sensibly. “I can’t just walk around our garden pushing Lili in her pram for the rest of my life.” And she didn’t do that anyway, the nurse did. Bettina spent very little time with the baby, and most of her time writing. “I won’t stay forever, just a few months.”
“Will you take the baby?” Gwyneth looked disappointed at the news, because she was having so much fun with Lili, and Sybil squeezed her friend’s hand when she saw how sad she looked.
“I think I should. It will be good for her too, to see new people and new places.” It was obvious that she’d given it considerable thought and made up her mind before she told them.