Laurel House

Michael POV:

I was back at home, where the laughter happens and I can rest at the end of the day. From the street it is bricks and mortar topped with tile, the same as any other mansion. If you step inside you'll feel it's so different, a place where the lungs choose to fill a little deeper and the heart beat a little steadier. I had purchased it for a fortune.

On the verandah were plants that reached up past the cedar railings and branched out gleefully into the sun, enjoying their fair-weather home. As was typical Gian, the pots were works of art in their own right. Every one was a pleasing shape and glazed in the same vibrant shades of blue I accented my home with. Some were like snapshots of midnight and ribbed like waves. Others were classically smooth, widening to a rimmed top, brilliant cyan glaze clinging to them like animal skin and dripping down the sides to add just the right dash of chaos. Against the deep browns of the wood, these simple pots were stunning just as I knew they would be when I stood in the store. The soil tops were casually covered in sea pebbles and shells, that's my Gian, always mentally at the beach.

The interior of the house was focused around a large central hallway serving as the main avenue of traffic and entrance area to the adjacent rooms. The hallway flows into a large, wide staircase that provides the main means of egress from the entertainment area of the house to the private rooms on the second floor. Four formal rooms with sixteen foot ceilings, pocket doors, fireplaces and tall windows form the main block of the building. On the first floor, the hallway and front parlor still retain the original wallpaper from 1882 with classic Anglo-Japanese asymmetrical designs and exotic motifs. The other rooms have been redecorated to approximate the original wallpaper and paint colors.

As you enter through the front door on the east facade, you pass into a grand hallway. The wallpaper is Anglo-Japanese design with Roman and Greek themes in the frieze on the ceilings and walls. The predominant colors are dark with tan and gold highlights, creating an interesting contrast to the original interior trim painting of ashen pinks, tans, pale blues and black detailing. This combination of colors is repeated throughout both floors of the house. The tall, heavy, varnished wood doors have as the top panel, colored glass panes of amber, blue and pink, in a geometric design. On either side of the main doors are smaller, longer versions of the colored glass windows. The doors and small windows have molded surrounds of painted wood with bulls-eye cornerblocks and decorative accents on the door surrounds and on the baseboard. The door knobs, plates, and hinges are brass with raised Eastlake style ornament.

Off the main hallway, to the right, is a small sitting room. The fireplace, situated on the interior wall facing east, has a tall mantel of birchwood with turned spindles flanking a rectangular mirror supporting a tapered hood. The hearth is set with dark patterned tiles of Eastlake designs with light blue and white floral tiles surrounding the firebox. The ceiling is painted pressed metal with a curved crown molding. The tall windows are of the Queen Anne style, banded at the top by a panel of colored lights (blue, amber, purple, red). The height of the window is emphasized by a dado panel of wood with molded trim beneath each window. This style of window is repeated throughout the fenestration of the main block of the house.

On the south side of the hall is the large front parlor. This room contains original wallpaper including ceiling panels of small birds and orange flowers with vibrant leaves of green and yellow set upon a light blue background. The main body of the wallpaper is shades of tan and brown with light blue highlights. The fireplace is on the west wall of the room with a mantel similar to the one in the front sitting room. On the hearth are dark tiles of geometric designs with lighter colored tiles of a thistle design around the firebox. This room retains the original Brussels carpeting laid when the house was built.

Continuing down the hallway, there is a center arch of decorative painted columns and molding with ornamental keystone designs. The haunch of the arch is angular rather than curved. The arch is formed by two freestanding columns flanked on either side by a smaller arch with engaged pillars. The side arches form decorative surrounds for the classic statuary that was placed in this area. The archway serves not only as a support for the upper floors, but as a visual break to make the main hallway feel less imposing. Across the hall from the music room is the formal dining room. The fireplace is located on the east wall of the room and is of wooden moldings with a large mirror over the mantel, bracketed by electric candles and tiered overmantel. The dining room has panel doors on the west wall, one of which opens to the pantry and continues to the kitchen, and the other door opens to a small work and storage area

I stretched out on my burgundy leather couch to watch the Weather Channel with my two female Siamese cats, Mee and Yow, curled against my chest. Mee, a big seal-point, rarely cuddled with me. Yow, a blue-point, was in my lap the minute I sat down. He felt a kinship with the cats, who had become my family; they were all I had. They always sat with him while I watched television at night. They curled up on the big oak desk when I worked there at my computer. Late at night, they climbed under the covers on either side of me and purred me to sleep. That was the summary of my sad life, I never allow anyone to ge to close to, for the fear of getting hurt again.

My mind strayed to Aurora again, and her mother. I was still in shock of how coldly she rebuffed me. We didn't end on a bad note, I sent her a letter of recommendation and a full month salary. So how dare she give me a cold shoulder.

The faint scent of her Rose perfume still up my nose. Amazing how much I missed that scent around me. She had become almost like a stick of furniture aware of an odd, tender nurturing of himself that I'd never had in my adult life. She made me think of open fireplaces in winter, of warm lamplight in the darkness. Her absence had only served to make me realize how alone I was. I spent the rest of the night thinking about ways to get her to come back, but none came.

I remembered that the elderly Mrs. Hardy was allergic to fur. Aurora loved animals but couldn't get any. She kept little figurines of cats on her desk. I never asked her to my home, but I was certain that she’d love my cats.

My eyes flashed suddenly at the thought of Aurora working with that damn Leo Jordan, perhaps he was still bitter over the divorce and the custody suit his wife had brought against him. I was only doing what any other attorney would have done in my place. His now ex was as happy she seemed wanted seemed in that high-powered property law job she held in New York City, she wasn’t likely to ever come home. She loved the little boy as much as Leo did, and she felt it was better not to have him dangling between two parents and wanted full access.

I shook my head. What a pity that people had children before they thought about the consequences. They never improved a bad marriage. The children were always the ones who suffered most, I had a first hand experience of it and learned the hard way.

He is still salty about the divorce, he will try to snatch Aurora from me. perhaps he already has, that was why she was acting so cold.

'Snatch Aurora away from me?' I cringed at my thoughts. When did she ever belonged to me to be snatched. Why did I care about for whom she works for and who she gets involved with. I caught myself, I felt wierd unable to provide answers for myself at first.

'We may have parted in a not so quite good terms but yet she's my ex secretary, I couldn't watch get entangled with a man like Leo Jordan. It was my duty to protect her' I muttered to myself.

I dared to breath again after providing a satisfying answer reasonable enough to convince myself.