By Wednesday night, Sybil and Blake had made enormous headway, organizing their new home. The inspections were complete by then, and were all satisfactory. The house would officially be theirs in a week, and the bank was allowing them to start painting before that so they could finish before they moved in. And as they had promised, the bank had turned over a large box to them, with the original plans and blueprints of the house, a leather-bound book which was Bettina Butterfield de Lambertin’s family history, a family tree, and a wealth of photographs of events at the house and members of the family. Sybil noticed that there were dates marked on the back of most of them, and occasionally the names of who was in the photograph, and she carefully put the book about the family into her bag to read on the plane home to New York. She was hungry to know more about them, and she left everything in the box, except the book, in her new office, to go through after they moved in. Family histories always fascinated her, and she wanted to read about the family that had built the mansion and lived there. It made living in the house, and owning it, more meaningful.
By the time Sybil left San Francisco on Thursday, things seemed to be in good order. She had hired a gardener to clean up the grounds and trim the hedges. And she had forgiven Blake for his insanity, buying the enormous mansion. Now that she had seen it herself, she understood what had happened. There was something magical and deeply moving about the mansion. You could see how greatly loved it had once been, and how carefully thought out the building of it must have been, a hundred and fifteen years before. And some of it still made sense today. Sybil had fallen in love with the house too, and was excited to show it to the children. She took more photographs, particularly of the children’s sunny, spacious bedrooms, since they wanted to see them. And she had described to them the playroom they were going to set up in the basement. She had broken the bad news to Charlie on the phone that he’d have to roller-skate outside, because the ballroom was too pretty to skate in, and she didn’t want him wrecking the antique floors. She and Blake both felt proprietary about the house. And now that she had seen it, it was bringing them closer together, rather than tearing them apart, as Blake had feared at first.
She answered all their children’s questions when she got back to New York, and went to look for the right fabrics for the upholstered pieces, and she found many she liked that she thought would be perfect in the house. She had to laugh at herself—after a whole career focused on modern design, she was now steeped in all things Victorian, but it was fun to do the research. She was so busy, she hadn’t time to read Bettina Butterfield’s book yet, but she was going to as soon as she could. She had wrapped it in plastic to protect the century-old leather cover in her bag.
She helped the children select what they wanted to ship to San Francisco, which in Caroline’s case meant her entire wardrobe, but given the size of the house they were moving into, Sybil didn’t argue with her. There was room for it all. And Charlie wanted to take most of his toys. Both boys wanted their favorite videogames and PlayStations, and Andy was taking his new Xbox. Sybil packed for her and Blake, while also trying to get ready for Christmas. Blake came home a few days before the holiday. He was spending their last ten days in New York with them, to help them get ready, and would fly back to San Francisco with them on New Year’s Day.
There were tearful farewells at school, mostly for Caroline. Andy was planning to come back in a few months to visit friends, and had invited some to visit him in San Francisco during vacations, and by the week after Christmas they were all ready. They had a peaceful Christmas Eve at home, with all their usual traditions, gifts on Christmas Eve, and a turkey dinner, and a lazy day on Christmas Day, in their pajamas, enjoying one another and their gifts, all of which they were planning to take with them to their new home. And Blake and Sybil gave an informal buffet dinner to say goodbye to their friends, even though she was planning to come back often for work.
Caroline and Andy went out with their New York friends for a last time on New Year’s Eve, and Blake and Sybil stayed home and toasted each other at midnight. It had been a busy month, and January would be even more so, getting settled in San Francisco, with the children starting new schools. Blake was loving his new job and associates, and Sybil was grateful to have a lull in her work schedule, so she could turn her full attention to the move.
“Here’s to our new home,” Blake said, and kissed her as the ball fell in Times Square on their TV.
“Thank you for finding it,” Sybil said sincerely. Blake had been lucky. She was falling in love with the house more day by day, although she had been stunned and horrified when he first told her. “And to no earthquakes as long as we live there,” she said half-seriously, and he laughed at her.
“There won’t be. I promise,” he said confidently, and she hoped he was right, since there hadn’t been a really big one in a very long time, and hopefully there wouldn’t be for the next two years, or for however long they lived there. She had stopped worrying about it in her excitement about the house. All she could think of now was how beautiful it was going to be. From their comfortable and predictable life in New York and their apartment in Tribeca, they were moving to San Francisco to live in an enormous mansion. It was going to be an adventure, and all five Gregorys could hardly wait.
Chapter 3
Caroline texted her friends until the plane took off at JFK, and Charlie looked faintly nostalgic as the plane circled over New York and headed west, and then he turned to his mother with his big brown eyes and dark hair just like Blake’s.
“You’re sure there are no ghosts there?”
“Positive. I promise.” She smiled at him, and handed him his iPad so he could play a game. They all watched movies on the plane and had lunch, and Sybil knew that the children were still faintly apprehensive about seeing their new home for the first time. They were intrigued by how big it was, Sybil said they’d get used to it, and told them how much fun it would be. They could have as many friends over as they wanted in a home that size, and play outdoors on the lawn.
Blake had reported that the painters finished their work on time on the two floors they’d been assigned to work on. The kitchen still needed some help, but was functional. IKEA had installed new cabinets and appliances. And they already had all the linens they needed. She had gotten the upholsterers started on the pieces from storage. The chandeliers and sconces were now in their original locations, and the rest of the furniture that had been stored was placed where Sybil believed it went originally, by guesswork and logical conclusion, and had instructed the movers accordingly. Blake had used the original photographs to place the chandeliers in the right rooms and they had filled in what the children needed for their bedrooms from IKEA. All their Internet and Wi-Fi connections had been set up, so they could use their computers as soon as they arrived. The only things they didn’t have yet were the flat-screen TV and pool table for the basement, but they were due to arrive in a few weeks.