But too much stored away, hidden away, that could and should be used and appreciated. Heirlooms, yes, but …
Maybe the cousins wanted some of it. Or at least a select piece or two. And her mother … Yes, her mother should have something.
It wasn’t a matter of selling it. Selling it didn’t seem right somehow. And some, maybe most, should be kept for future generations.
Family history, in wood and glass, in silks and satins, in thick old records.
It would take her days—more realistically, weeks and months—to go through it all. Going down the inventory list simply didn’t do the job of seeing, touching.
Feeling, she admitted.
“Okay then. This goes on the handle-it list. So does hiring a cleaning service, because I really can’t maintain this place the way it needs to be maintained by myself.”
She made notes of the pieces she wanted to move downstairs, added finding a consultant on vintage clothing, picking a cleaning service.
The practical thing, she thought as she wandered, would be to close off most if not all of the third floor, the attic. After she’d opened that door to the cousins, her mother. A seasonal cleaning should work there.
She walked into the half turret, Collin’s studio. Light poured in from the windows on three sides, spilling onto the polished wood floors.
He’d kept his supplies on shelves on the rear wall, and a worktable. A couple of easels stood folded there, but another stood in that semicircle of glass.
“What do I do with your things? Maybe I’d use some of them eventually, but…”
She trailed a finger over the brushes in one of the brush easels. Brushes for oils, for acrylics, for watercolors. Color shapers, spatcher blades. Palette knives on a rack of their own.
Sketchbooks, pencils, charcoal.
Her father had had nearly the same setup.
And had used the same brush washer, the cold-pressed linseed oil, the mineral spirits.
It would’ve smelled the same in here as in her father’s studio, and the thought of it made her eyes sting.
“I don’t have the talent for this, or the time. Or—Mom was right—the passion. But what do I do with your things?”
One of the cousins again? Or Cleo?
Unsure, she opened the door beside the worktable.
And lost her breath.
The full-length portrait stood framed in simple dark wood. Though not as large as the one of Astrid Poole, it had the same impact.
The woman stood, again in a long white dress.
Not the same dress, but unmistakably a wedding gown, with its off-the-shoulder sweetheart neckline, the full frothy skirt. The woman in it wore a headpiece of rosebuds with a trailing ribbon over auburn hair that tumbled in waves to her shoulders. Joy radiated out of summer-blue eyes.
In her right hand, where a diamond glinted on her finger, she held a bouquet of blue hydrangeas and airy greenery. On her left, she wore a platinum band sparkling with more diamonds.
The sea spread at her back.
“You’re Johanna. You have to be, and I’m not leaving you shut away in here.”
As she reached for the canvas, the closet door nearly slammed shut behind her.
“And I’m not getting shut away in here either.”
She took a nearly full jug of mineral spirits off the shelf, used it to brace the door open. She maneuvered the painting out, then carried it over to set it on the easel.
“For now. I actually like you in the simplicity of this frame. No fuss, no carving, and I’ll find a place for you. I don’t know why he didn’t.”
She sucked in her breath as a door slammed, then a second, then a third.
Suddenly cold, she hurried out.
“Closing off the third floor,” she told herself. “Making sure all the doors are shut, and closing off the storage areas as soon as possible.”
Her thought to make coffee—to warm up—flew out of her head when she reached the kitchen.
Every cabinet door stood open.
“That’s just enough.” Maybe her voice shook, but she said it again. “That’s just enough.” And shut every door with a snap.
She started to rush to the coat closet, grab her things, get out. And as she reached for her coat, she knew if she left now, left when her hands trembled, she might never come back.
“It’s my house. It’s my damn house.”
So she’d make coffee, and work awhile. Before she worked, she’d take something out of the freezer. Maybe chicken. And later, she’d make a meal that wasn’t a salad, a sandwich, or canned soup.
“I’m going to work here, and sleep here, and eat here, and live here. Because it’s my damn house.”