out again and redoing it to please me, or telling me to bugger off, because I chose it, and now I just have to live with it.”
“Reckon I will,” Gray said. “We’d better find out which it is.” And opened the door.
We stepped into light. Ancient, wide-plank hardwood floorboards, unearthed from under layers of linoleum and carpet, varnished to a shine. A white-painted foyer full of built-in shelves and hooks and cubbies, and beyond it, our brand-new great room. The enormous, ornate, carved-wood fireplace mantel, and the brick of the chimney above it exposed, old, and warm. Three couches set around it in a U, with a non-bulbous coffee table and end tables to set your tea on. The dining table, too, where you could sit and look out through windows unobstructed by curtains, to the gardens and the trees.
It all looked like relaxing. It all looked clean and unfussy and comfortable and bright. I couldn’t stay there, though, because I had to explore the kitchen.
It was what I’d dreamed of, but better. Glass-fronted cabinets on top and white ones beneath, and dark-green soapstone benchtops with a huge farmhouse sink made of the same material, the texture so organic and silky-smooth under your hands, you just wanted to stand there and feel it. A huge island full of storage, with four stools arranged in front of it and an actual vase of flowers on top. Flowers arranged without the least bit of talent, by somebody who’d made an effort, because he knew I loved flowers.
It was all warm and bright and clean and so homey. The home I’d never had.
I wanted to explore it some more, to open every cabinet and drawer and see what he’d done there. Whether the spice cupboard was as good as it had looked on the website, and whether there were turntables in the pantry, and so many other things. I couldn’t, though, because Gray was tugging at my hand.
“Come on,” he said. “Come and see.”
Through an arched doorway that had once led to the dining room. Now, it was an office. A double office. The wood-burner was still in the corner, but there was an old Oriental carpet on the hardwood floor, all deep reds and burnished golds, and a basket in the corner for Xena, which she went to now, curling up and lying down with a sigh, like all this looking and exclaiming was exhausting. The walls were lined with shelves and cabinets and two built-in desks that wrapped around the corners. One at the back of the room that was Gray’s. And the other, kitty-corner to it at the front, looking out onto the gardens again, out to the sky and the sea, that was mine. So I could study, whatever time of day or night it was.
“Upstairs,” Gray said, when I lingered again.
The stairs and railings had been laboriously stripped of their paint, the original wood restored and varnished, and a carpet runner laid down. Xena followed us up, panting a little with excitement, picking up on the mood, and Gray started opening doors.
Two bedrooms, the dormer windows now boasting window seats with cushions and storage beneath. A laundry room with cabinets and a rod for hanging clothes and another deep soapstone sink. And a bathroom. With a heated floor and a double sink and heated towel racks and a bathtub and a shower, the benchtops and shower done in veined quartz in white and pale gray. Almost no grout to scrub, and a windowsill you could put an orchid on.
“Another half bath downstairs,” Gray said, “Beside the entryway. I forgot to show you.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. “I love it.” It was true. The walls were white, and every fixture was new and gleaming. Not a concrete sink or bare wall of showerheads to be seen.
“Our bedroom,” Gray said, and took me to the last room. The same size as the others, with the same window seat, ready for reading or just dreaming, and with the best view, of flowers and vegetable garden and orchards, and silky-haired Suri alpacas chewing grass. A big bed with a view out that same window, and an enormous photo hanging over it.
The Wanaka Tree. Not black and white this time. Photographed instead in a rosy dawn that tinted everything pink and gold and blue. The mountains, and the lake, and the sea. The sinuous black branches of the tree reaching out over the water and reflected in the calm surface beneath, and the mountains