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It never entered my mind that I would fall in love with the place, or that as soon as I walked through the doors for the first time it would feel like coming home. It’s the oddest thing since I’m not the sort of man to let any person, place or thing have such a hold on me.
Things only seemed to intensify over that long weekend as I went through the old man’s stuff. The letter was full of his favorite things, things he wanted me to keep and never get rid of, but mostly he wanted his only grandson to live on in the ancestral home which is the right of all the first born males of the family. Something that had skipped a generation since he’d only had the one child which was my mother.
The more time I spent here, the more absurd the thought of leaving seemed to be, until I found myself bright and early that Monday morning on the phone with my assistant organizing the move that I hadn’t known I was going to make until I came here and saw the place.
And as time went by I got to feel like the house, the surroundings, everything was a part of me in some inexplicable way that I have yet to put into words. And then ‘she’ moved here, almost a year to the day later.
I’d met her aunt a handful of times after my first few weeks here when I’d started making the rounds. It didn’t freak me out at all that the Norman Rockwell style town was full of seventy and eighty year olds. You had to go a pretty distance to find anyone younger than fifty in fact, but for some odd reason that seemed like the best thing.
Me, a man who had flourished in the hustle and bustle of the largest metropolitan cities in the world had found a place and a home in these country hills that seemed so far removed from everywhere and everything else.
But it’s the dreams, vivid and unbelievably real dreams that have been plaguing me for the better part of a month now. And now this feeling that I needed to go back to bed when there was so much needing to be done.
Although I’d moved here and hadn’t returned to my hometown since, I still have a business to run which thanks to technology is a snap from here in the comfort of my home. I’ve never missed a day, not when there was money to be made; but today I didn’t have it in me to care about the next million I could be making.
I finished the coffee standing at the sink and watched as the first snowflake fell outside the window. The longer I stood there watching the more exhausted I began to feel, until I was falling asleep on my feet.
I mindlessly turned off the lights and turned the heat to a comfortable warmth before heading back to the bedroom and my bed. In the back of my mind I heard the whispered words, ‘pleasant dreams’ and I hastened my step to get to the bed faster.
Yes, I would like nothing better than to get lost in one of my dreams while the snow comes down outside while I stay cuddled up under the covers with a fire going in the fireplace.
I’d barely closed my eyes, or they’d barely snapped shut on me when I found myself drifting. A few seconds later I saw myself get up from the bed fully dressed and head out to the kitchen. I watched as I retrieved the keys to the old Bentley the old man had left me along with everything else and walked outside in the snow that seemed to be coming down much faster than just a few seconds ago.
I moved almost on autopilot to the attached garage and climbed into the car, waiting for it to warm up before using the remote I kept in the glove compartment to open the garage door and back out onto the driveway before correcting and heading down the long circular drive that would take me to the main street.
I had no idea where I was going, but when I pulled up outside the familiar looking house I didn’t question why I was there. It felt like the most natural thing to park the car around back out of view of the neighbors and passersby before getting out and going to the backdoor.
It was open almost as if someone were expecting me. I knew where to go, as if my feet had walked this same path a thousand times, and my heart raced with excitement the closer I got to the door on the left at the end of the hall.
Garret
I eased the door open slightly with my finger and stepped into the toasty warm room. I didn’t need to look at the bed to know who laid there. Instead I went first to the small grate and stoked the fire, sending sparks into the air.
