The House (17 page)

“What happened after she disappeared?” Sarah asked, touched that her grandmother was finally telling her what had happened. She didn't want to be invasive, but suddenly it had all become terribly important. The house that Stanley had lived in for seventy-six years, and that she was selling now for his estate, had been built by her great-grandfather for her great-grandmother. She had been in it dozens of times over the years to visit Stanley, and she had never suspected that it had a deep connection to her. And now, suddenly, she was fascinated by it and wanted to know all.

“I don't know much about what happened. No one ever spoke about her when I was a child, and I wasn't allowed to ask. It always upset my father. I don't think he ever recovered, from any of it. Divorce was a shocking thing in those days. I learned later that she left my father for another man, and went to live in France with him. He was a French marquis, and very dashing, I was told. They met at a diplomatic party and fell in love. Several years after my father died, I learned that she had died of pneumonia or tuberculosis during the war. I never saw her again after she left us, and my father would never speak of her to me. As a child I never knew why she disappeared, or what happened.”

And yet, with all that tragedy in her life, Mimi was one of the happiest people Sarah had ever known. Mimi had lost her entire family—mother, brother, father—at a remarkably young age, and the whole way of life she'd known as a young child. And yet she was cheerful, unassuming, and content, and brought joy to everyone. Sarah understood now why she had always said that she had been born on the day she got married. It had been a whole new life for her. Not as luxurious as the one she'd lived as a child, but it had been solid and stable and secure, with a man who loved her, and their child.

“I don't think my father ever really got over it,” Mimi went on. “I don't know if it was losing my mother, or the money, probably both. It must have been devastating for him, and totally humiliating, to have his wife leave him for another man, and worse yet, a year after the crash. They would have had to give up the house anyway, and I think they were selling things already then. After that, my father worked in a bank, and became a recluse for the rest of his life. I don't remember him ever going out socially, until he died fifteen years later. He died right after I got married. He built that house for my mother. I remember the house as though it was yesterday, or at least I think I do. I remember their parties in the ballroom.” There was a dreamy look in her eyes as she said it, and it was even more remarkable for Sarah, knowing she had been in that same ballroom, and her grandmother's childhood nursery, only the week before.

“Would you like to see the house again, Mimi?” Sarah asked softly. She could easily take her to visit it before they sold it. It wasn't going on the market until the following week, after the broker's open house on Tuesday after Thanksgiving. “I have the keys. I could take you there this weekend.” Mimi hesitated and then shook her head with a nostalgic expression.

“It sounds silly, but I think it might upset me. I don't like doing things that make me sad.” Sarah nodded. She had to respect that. She was so touched by the history her grandmother had finally shared with her, after all these years. “I went to see the château where she had lived with the marquis she married, when I was in Europe with your grandfather, after your mother was born. But it was all boarded up and deserted. I knew she had died by then, but I just wanted to see where she had lived after she left us. The locals said her husband, the marquis, had died during the war as well. In the Resistance. They had no children. I wondered if I might find someone who knew her, some small piece of information or history about her. But no one knew anything, and neither your grandfather nor I spoke French. They just said the marquis had died, and she did, too. My father died around the same time she did, oddly. He always acted as though she had died, from the moment she left. And that is what I always told people when I was growing up. It was simpler. I told your mother that too.” Mimi looked apologetic for the lie, and Sarah's heart went out to her as she listened. What a tragedy it had been for Mimi. Sarah was grateful that Mimi had decided to finally tell her the truth. It felt like a gift.

“How awful for you,” Sarah said sadly. She put her arms around Mimi and gave her a hug. She couldn't even imagine what those years had been like for her. Losing her mother, her father's years of depression, and then to lose her only brother in the war. He had been killed at Iwo Jima, which she had always said had been the fatal blow for her father. He died less than a year later. Mimi had lost the last of her family, nearly at one gulp. And now, almost mysteriously, the house her great-grandfather had built had drifted into Sarah's life, bringing all its history and secrets with it.

“What's going on here?” Audrey asked sharply, as she walked into her mother's bedroom and saw Sarah give Mimi a hug. Audrey was always slightly jealous of the warm, easy relationship her mother and her daughter shared. Her relationship with Sarah was much more tense.

“We're just talking,” Mimi said, turning to smile at her daughter.

“About what?”

“My parents, actually,” Mimi said simply, as Audrey stared.

“You never talk about that, Mother. What brought that up?” Audrey had stopped questioning her mother about her childhood years before.

“I'm selling her parents' house for an estate,” Sarah explained. “It's a beautiful old house, although not in very good shape. It hasn't been touched since it was built.” Mimi drifted out of the room then, to look for George. They'd said enough.

“You didn't upset her, did you?” Audrey asked her daughter conspiratorially. “You know she doesn't like to talk about that stuff.” Audrey had heard rumors that her grandmother had abandoned her mother as a child, but Mimi never confirmed it and she knew very little else. As a result of handling Stanley's estate, Sarah now knew far more.

“I may have,” Sarah said honestly. “I tried not to. I found a photograph of her mother in the house this week. I didn't know who it was, but I realized I'd seen it somewhere before. I just saw it on her dresser.” She pulled the photograph of Lilli out and showed her mother. She didn't want to share her grandmother's confidences until Mimi said she could, or chose to do so herself.

“How strange.” Audrey looked pensive and then put it back. “I hope Mimi's not too upset.”

But when they walked back into the living room, Mimi seemed to have regained her composure, and was having an animated conversation with George. He was teasing the three ladies surrounding him, listening raptly, but his gaze was firmly attached to Mimi. He clearly had a soft spot for her. And she appeared to enjoy him as well.

Sarah finally left an hour later. Audrey stayed for a few more minutes, and then said she was meeting a friend. She didn't invite Sarah to join her, but Sarah wouldn't have anyway. She had a lot to think about, and wanted to be alone in her apartment to digest what her grandmother had shared. When she walked in, and saw the dirty dishes on the kitchen counter, the unmade bed, the laundry on her bathroom floor, she realized what her mother meant about her apartment. The place really was a shambles. It was dirty, dark, depressing. There were no curtains, the venetian blinds were broken. There were old wine stains on the carpet, and the couch she'd dragged through her life since college should have been thrown out years before.

“Shit,” Sarah said, as she sat down on the couch and looked around. She thought of Phil with his children in Tahoe, and felt lonely. Everything in her life suddenly seemed depressing. Her apartment was ugly, she had a weekend relationship with an inattentive boyfriend who didn't even bother to spend holidays with her after four years. All she really had in her life was work. She could hear the echo of Stanley's warnings, and could suddenly envision herself in an apartment like this one, or worse, ten or twenty years from now, with a boyfriend even worse than Phil, or none at all. She had stayed in the relationship with him because she didn't want to rock the boat, or lose the little she had. But what did she have? A solid career as a tax attorney, a partnership in a law firm, a mother who picked on her frequently, an adorable grandmother who adored her, and Phil, who used every excuse he could dream up not to spend time or holidays with her. It felt as though her personal life couldn't get much worse. In fact, she barely had one.

Maybe a nicer apartment would be a start, she thought, as she sat there on her ancient couch. And then what? What would she do after that? Who would she spend her time with, particularly if she decided what she had with Phil wasn't enough, and broke it off? It was terrifying thinking of all of it. And suddenly she wanted to clean house and get rid of everything, and maybe Phil with it. She looked at the two dead plants in her living room, and wondered why she hadn't noticed them in almost two years. Was this all she thought she deserved? A bunch of cast-off furniture she'd had since her days at Harvard, dead plants, and a man who didn't love her, no matter what he said. If he did, why wasn't she in Tahoe with him? She thought of how brave her grandmother must have been, how hard it was to lose her mother, brother, father, and still soldier on like a ray of sunshine, bringing joy to everyone in her life. She thought of Stanley then, in his attic room in the Scott Street house, and she suddenly made a decision. She was going to call Marjorie Merriweather in the morning and find a new apartment. She had the money, and it wouldn't solve everything, but it was a start. She had to do something different. If she didn't, she would be trapped here forever, alone on holidays, with dead plants and an unmade bed.

Phil didn't bother to call her that night, to wish her a happy Thanksgiving. She didn't even matter that much to him. And he never liked her to call him when he was with his kids. He considered it an intrusion and said as much if she called. She knew that when he did call, he'd have some complicated though plausible excuse why he hadn't. And swallowing whatever he said to her would only make it that much worse. It was time to pick up her skirts and do something about her life. She decided to tackle the apartment first. Thanks to Stanley, that was the easy part. But maybe once she dealt with that, the rest would be easier for her. She lay on the couch in the dark, thinking about it. She deserved so much better than this. And if Mimi could turn her history into a happy life, Sarah knew she could do it, too, whatever it took.

Chapter 9

Sarah called Marjorie
on the Friday after Thanks giving at nine in the morning. She wasn't in her office, but Sarah got her on her cell. Marjorie thought she was calling about the house on Scott Street. The janitorial service had been there, the boards and curtains had been put in a dumpster, and the place was immaculate after a full-time cleaning crew had scrubbed, polished, and shined it all week. The broker's open house was Tuesday. All the brokers were aware of it, and so far the response had been good. Marjorie said she was expecting a full house, with nearly every broker in town.

“I wasn't actually calling about that,” Sarah explained, after Marjorie had given her the full report on Scott Street, and added that the brokers even liked the price they'd put on it. Given the condition the house was in, balanced by the enormous amount of square footage, and incomparable antique details, they thought the price was fair. “I was actually calling about a new apartment. For me. I think I'd like to find a condo, something really nice, in Pacific Heights. My mother has been bugging me about it for years. Do you suppose we could find something?” Sarah asked hopefully.

“Of course.” Marjorie sounded delighted. “You're looking at about half a million dollars in Pacific Heights, if that feels right to you. Flats would be more expensive, and would run closer to a million, if they're in decent shape. A house would be closer to two. Unless we start looking in other areas, but then you're going to get into houses that may need a lot of work. Tear-downs these days cost close to a million dollars, even in neighborhoods where you won't want to live. Real estate's not cheap in San Francisco, Sarah.”

“Wow, at those prices, maybe we should be asking more for Scott Street.” But they both knew that was a special house, and there was a ton of work to do there.

“We'll find you something pretty, don't worry,” Marjorie reassured her. “I have a few things on my books right now. I'll check on their status, and make sure they're not in escrow. When do you want to look?”

“Do you have any time today? My office is closed till Monday, and I'm pretty much at loose ends.”

“I'll call you back in an hour,” Marjorie promised. Sarah did her laundry while she waited, and threw out the dead plants. She couldn't believe how long they'd been there and that she'd never noticed them before. It was a hell of a statement about her, she reproached herself. When Marjorie called back, she said she had four condos to show her. Two were lovely, one was so-so, and one was kind of interesting, though maybe too small for her, but worth a look. The last one was on Russian Hill, which wasn't Sarah's first-choice neigh-borhood, but she was willing. The other three were in Pacific Heights a few blocks from her. Sarah agreed to meet her at noon. She was suddenly excited about it, although she knew it would probably take time to find the right thing. Maybe her mother could help her with the decorating. The domestic arts were not Sarah's strong suit.

She had already calculated that if she put ten percent down on a condo she purchased, she would still have plenty of Stanley's money to invest. Ten percent of half a million, if she spent that much, was only fifty thousand. That would leave her with seven hundred thousand to invest. If she went totally crazy and bought a house for two million dollars, she'd have to put up two hundred thousand. She'd still have half a million of Stanley's money left. And she made enough money at the law firm to pay a mortgage. She didn't want a house. She didn't need that much space. An apartment seemed like a much better solution to her.