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“Right here,” she said, extending her arms and twirling into the large empty space with hardwood floors, “I want a huge Christmas tree.”
“All year?” I laughed.
“No, silly,” she said. “But wouldn’t it look amazing right here in front of this big window?”
“It would,” I agreed.
“Over here,” she continued, “I want a buffet table.”
“So, this is where we do the fancy dinner parties you were telling me about then,” I said.
“Yes.” She nodded. “The fanciest. I want to have those parties where people hold tiny masks on sticks and speak with bad accents and drink champagne.”
“That’s… very specific,” I laughed.
“It’s fancy,” she said. “Oh! We could totally do one for New Year’s Eve. Can you imagine a big glowing ball in the yard out there?” She pointed out of the bay window to where the outdoor dining space had clearly been before it was taken over by time and neglect. “People could filter through here and out into the yard, and we could do the countdown and drop the ball and everything.”
“That sounds incredible,” I said.
She smiled and then something else caught her attention, and she flittered away. It really did sound incredible, too. I wasn’t just saying it to make her happy. The idea of having a party for New Year’s Eve was something I hadn’t even entertained since I first joined the service. Back then, in my early twenties, it was a great excuse to party, but since then it had just become another day. My resolutions were generally about doing good rehab and finding something to replace the military as my focus in life.
It hit me that I had finally done it. I had finally found something else to throw all my energy into, and what’s more, it wasn’t just something; it was someone. Two someones, for that matter. I had Allison and baby Leo to think about now. And the idea of celebrating the new year with both of them was suddenly extremely gratifying. I couldn’t wait to ring in a new year where both of them were in my life.
I smiled as I watched Allison continue through the downstairs, showing me where she would put certain furniture, what color paint she would have when it was finished, what the function of the room would be. It was so much fun to watch her explore the corners of her mind that had been thinking these things for a long time and refused to voice themselves for fear of jinxing it. I could see the ideas that had long remained dormant coming out, and then new ones modifying them or replacing them wholesale now that she could exist in the space.
We circled the downstairs completely and made it back to the front door and the landing below the stairs. Allison explained she wanted a giant painting to go there, taking up a bunch of the white wall. I could see it through her description like I was looking at it and agreed it would make the space more inviting. I turned to look down the hall, and when I turned back, she was already halfway up the stairs, beckoning me to join her.
“Oh wow,” she said as we crested the landing to the second floor and saw into the open bedroom across from it. A huge, ornate wooden bedframe sat in the center of the empty room, a beam of sunlight shining in through the window and highlighting the intricate carvings on the wood.
“So there is one of these in three of the bedrooms,” I said. “Three doubles and a single. They have been in the house since the early nineteen-hundreds. There is also a king-size one in the master bedroom on the third floor, but it’s from the fifties.”
“Because they didn’t make them before then,” she said absently as she ran her fingertips over the carvings.
“They didn’t?” I asked.
“Nope,” she said. “King and queen size beds came out in the forties and fifties. Before that you either had a bed for one or a bed for two.”
“Cozy,” I said.
She looked back at me with a devious grin, and the light flashed in her eyes, making them sparkle.
“Why do you think they had so many kids back then?” she laughed.
“Fair,” I said.
“I would love to find the rest of the bedroom set that goes with this,” she said. “These are really specific design carvings. It would have been a full set.”
“I’m sure if we did some digging, we could find the rest of the set somewhere online,” I offered.
“Or we could just roam the country, going to thrift shops and seeing if any of them have seen it, like the world’s most domestic treasure hunt,” she said.
“I like it,” I said. “We can spend some time antiquing and finishing things we find. I’m looking forward to it.”
“Come on,” she said. “I want to see the master and then go explore the grounds.”
