I laugh to myself. He’ll never admit what a softie he is.
“Fine. Did she mention any new ideas for all that old crap we found?”
“The antiques, you mean?” He stops in the doorway and looks at me, adjusting his glasses on his nose.
“No, the mummy we unearthed in the field. Come on, man, you know what I mean.” I groan, dragging a hand across my face.
“Their age commands a certain respect,” he says, suddenly the old-timey teacher rapping me across the knuckles for a dumb answer. “It sounds like you didn’t notice all the work she did today.”
“Work? Where? You mean she’s already getting it in place?”
“You’re a hopeless man, Ridge Barnet.” He huffs out a breath. “Follow me.”
I bite back a grin.
Even Tobin has his limits with my shit sometimes.
“Been busy. I haven’t had a chance to prowl around the house all day,” I say, catching up to him.
We head to the next floor.
As soon as I enter the foyer, I stop, stare, and look around.
I was so focused on my own work when I’d walked in, I hadn’t noticed anything, and now I wonder how the hell I’d missed the obvious.
The entire area is transformed.
Mother’s portrait, the vase with the yellow roses, it’s all there, but…
“Damn,” I whisper, glancing at Tobin.
He nods, not even trying to hide a smile like usual, and then turns, heading for the living room.
I walk to the center of the foyer, taking it all in.
It’s the little things that make it shine. An old horse harness hanging on the wall. An aged wooden barrel with the hooked end of an umbrella sticking out the top. Two crocks on the base of the stairs, one full of pinecones, the other a few pine boughs that give my nose an instant punch of freshness.
Then there’s an antique—I’ll use the proper word for Tobin’s sake—washboard with the word WELCOME painted on it in a girly script.
Finally, an old, scuffed-up grey board, with a rope looped around it and several pictures attached, hanging on the wall near my mom’s portrait.
Walking closer, my heart swells as I realize they’re candid photos of my mother throughout her career, carefully selected from several different movies.
Talk about memories galore.
Shit, the one where she’s smiling, half toppled over, dusted with flour…I remember being on the set.
I think I was seven years old. The set crew even let me fling big fistfuls of flour around to help create the scene where Mom fell over in her own cake factory after trying to keep up with a hundred delicious confections for a big Italian wedding with eight hundred people.
It’s one of those classic, funny, awkwardly organic rom com scenes. Very I Love Lucy.
I don’t realize how much I’m smiling until I turn.
Yeah. There’s no question these pictures are better memories than that towering portrait with its thick gold frame.
I step back, staring at the wall, the table below it holding the vase and its roses.
There, too, she’s made a subtle change.
The vase has been moved just slightly, making room for an old oil lamp and two horseshoes. Both linked together, lying between the lamp and the vase.
Impressive.
With barely a few tweaks, she’s altered the entire feel of that wall.
The in-your-face memorial is more subdued now, as if it’s a natural part of my house, rather than a bitter piece of the past I’d agreed to on Tobin’s whim.
Slowly, I make my way into the living room. Again, no jaw-dropping changes, just little things.
Old odds and ends. Antiques. Natural art.
A few empty metal containers and crocks, probably waiting for the flowers we talked about.
Each bit of décor more fitting than the last.
Right down to the three blue canning jars on the coffee table. They’re inside a flat wooden tray with stones and miniature candles. Her insight about bringing in nature to make the house feel less sterile was dead-on.
There’s another old board attached to the wall. This one is wider and has silvery wire around it, and then more pictures.
This time, they’re all me.
I recognize several of my boy wonder superhero flicks, the angsty high school quarterback I’d played half a lifetime ago, a few scenes from more recent Western flops.
Here come those memories again.
And they come with a smile I just can’t shake.
There’s also a handsome saddle blanket draped on the back of the sofa. It’s old, subtly frayed, but freshly washed, and it adds a perfectly rustic touch to the room. So does the scarred wooden bowl with a small antler lying inside it on an end table.
I feel like I’m teleported back to the Westerns without the stress or the market indigestion at the end.
Just the good times.
When I had this place built, I wanted balance. Country and classy paired up in equal measure.
A whole team of architects and interior designers from California might’ve started it, but Grace Sellers gave it a soul.