Chapter 9 #3
Who’s going to follow me in, does a criminal own this place or something? Hmm, I make a mental note to check that out, don’t want to be a sitting duck target.
The gates slowly open and I drive in and stop just on the other side, I watch the camera follow me in and then go back to face the gates, the light is still flashing and once they are fully closed I slowly drive up the tree-lined road.
Rolling green hills, beautiful, oversized trees, and a giant lake, this place looks straight out of a fairy tale.
This seems too good to be true.
I remind myself, don’t get excited…judging from the front gate security, it’s probably owned by a drug lord or something. There’s got to be a catch.
I keep driving and driving and I look into the rearview mirror and see the pine trees from the other side and my eyes widen as the penny drops.
I would be the one trimming those fucking trees.
Instant panic rises in my throat, I don’t know what I’m doing here…. I have no idea how to look after a property of this caliber.
Fuck.
I keep driving up the road, and with every mile I cross, more and more anxiety builds. I pass paddock after paddock, horses and cows, deer, alpacas…. Fucking alpacas?
I don’t know a thing about fucking alpacas.
I imagine all the animals dying on my watch and I bite my lip, should I just leave?
I can’t get through the fucking gates without them letting me out.
Fuck.
I drive past a sandstone house on a hill, it has its own driveway and beautiful gardens and I recognize it instantly. It’s the caretaker’s cottage, I pull the car to a stop to look it over.
Perfectly kept green grass, wide steps leading up to a veranda around the outside, there’s a seat swing hanging from the ceiling on the end. There’s a willow tree in the front garden, the kind you hand a tire from, my eyes look over the lake and that’s when I see the ducks swimming around.
Imagine growing up here.
Determination fills me like never before.
I have to get this fucking job, whatever it takes. I keep driving toward the main house as adrenaline surges through me.
This would be life changing for my girls.
Stability, fresh air, and farm animals. A new beginning with new friends away from the horror and sadness of losing their mom.
So I don’t know how to trim a hedge, so fucking what…. I’ll learn, how hard can it be?
I grip the steering wheel as my mind goes to the one thing that would keep me in New York.
What about Mabel?
Would she do long distance? I mean, it is only two hours away. She could come here on weekends or we could go there. She works so many hours through the week anyway.
No.
If I am given the opportunity for my girls to live and grow up here, I can’t throw it away for my own needs. I have to put them first and if Mabel and I are meant to be, then we will work it out.
The main house comes into view and I audibly gasp in awe.
It’s huge and sprawling, made entirely of sandstone with a slate roof, it has gables and beautiful stained-glass windows. It looks more like something out of a Harry Potter movie set in England than a house in the United States.
A castle of epic proportions.
The driveway is circular and the gardens are like nothing I’ve ever seen in real life.
“Fuck me dead,” I whisper as I park the car, I sit for a moment taking it all in and my stomach begins to churn with nerves. “Do not. Fucking. Blow. This.”
I get out of the car and walk up to the front door and it opens, an elderly lady comes into view. She’s wearing a black skirt and top with a round white apron. “Hello.” She smiles. “I’m Deirdre, you must be Andrew?” She seems kind and friendly.
“Yes.” I nod, I hold my hand out to shake hers. “Nice to meet you.”
“You too, dear.” She turns and walks off. “This way.”
My eyes flick around and I don’t know where to look first, the marble staircase, the gold gilded fireplaces or the black-and-white checked marble floors, or maybe it’s just the sheer luxury of all of the furnishings. “Wow,” I whisper.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” She smiles. “I had the same reaction when I came for my interview.”
“How long have you worked here?” I ask as we walk.
“Ten years,” she replies. “I live on the property in my own house.”
“You live in the caretaker’s cottage?” I frown, oh no.
It’s shared accommodation?
“No, I have my own house on the property.” She points to the opposite direction to the caretaker’s cottage. “Over the next hill.”
Relief fills me. “Right.”
“Clyde is in his office, this way.” I follow her down a corridor and we turn the corner into another wing. Room after room of out-of-this-world splendor, chandeliers, marble, and gold gilded mirrors, I can’t believe this place? It’s like a beautiful museum or something.
We get to a huge marble archway and she pushes through the timber arch doors to arrive in another large room, there just off it is an office with a man sitting behind a desk. “Andrew is here to see you, Clyde.”
“Thank you, Deirdre.” He smiles as he comes out of his office and shakes my hand. “Hello, Andrew,” a deep Scottish voice booms.
“Hello.” I nod, I clutch my chest. “Forgive me, I’m nervous.”
He breaks into a broad smile and he and Deirdre exchange glances. “Don’t be nervous, we don’t bite.” He gestures to his desk. “Please take a seat.”
I sit down.
Don’t blow this.
Clyde sits down and leans back in his chair as he smiles over at me. “So….”
I clasp my hands together on my lap with white-knuckle force. “So…it’s stunning.”
“It is.” He watches me intently as if waiting for me to say something.
“Look….” I shrug. “I know I’m probably not the most suitable person to look after something like this but I promise you I’m hardworking and I’m honest and if I don’t know something, I can learn how to do it. I’m smart, I can figure anything out.”
He listens intently.
“And I love animals and I’m honest.” Fuck, I said that already. “And I’ll do whatever it takes to look after this place as if it were my own.”
“I have no doubt.”
“And as mentioned in my interview—” I’m talking way too fast and babbling like an idiot, “—I’m a widower with two young daughters and they’ve had a really rough time and if I can offer them some time here…even just for a while….” My eyes search his.
“Relax, Andrew,” he replies. “You don’t need to be nervous.”
“I kind of do because now that I’ve seen this place…if I don’t get it….”
“You’ve got it.”
Huh?
“I knew when I met you via Zoom that you will be wonderful.”
“But I don’t have any experience….”
“Like you said, you’re smart.”
I nod.
“And this position is a management role.”
I frown, not understanding.
“Yes. It’s true, you will be doing some things, but you will be mostly managing the gardeners and the housekeeping staff. Paying bills and organizing maintenance.”
I think for a moment. “So I won’t be trimming the hedges near the road?”
“Hell no, we have professionals for that.”
“Oh.” I put my hand over my chest. “I thought I had to do all of it.”
He chuckles. “We have twelve gardeners, all with varying hours, no one person could look after a property of this size.”
“Right.” I feel a little of my nerves lighten. “So what would I be doing?”
“You will live here on the property, arrange rosters, and set tasks for the gardeners. Look after the housekeeping staff and make sure the property is upkept.”
“So I would be upkeeping it?” I frown, I know nothing about upkeeping.
“Yes. So, for example if a roof is leaking, you employ someone to fix it and make sure it is done correctly. Basically, you act as if you own the property.”
“That I can do.” I smile.
“Oh, there is one more thing. The animals are completely under your care. We don’t let casuals look after them, that responsibility is yours.
Their well-being, feed, housing, stables, and maintenance falls directly with you.
The three horses need to be ridden regularly; and we have a vet who comes here if needed. ”
“I can do that.” I nod.
Not sure about riding fucking horses, but anyway…I can learn.
A vision flashes before my eyes, me screaming on the back of a runaway horse as it runs into the lake and drowns me.
Fuck.
“After hours, you’ll be the only one working,” he continues.
“What does that mean?”
“If Deidre or the owners are here and they need something, you will take care of it.”
“Okay, tell me more about the owners?”
“Honestly, they never visit. It’s a crime to have something so beautiful and not enjoy it. They aren’t coming at all this season.” He shrugs. “Their loss I guess, I can’t imagine what their other places are like if they can’t be bothered to come here.”
I force a smile. “How the other half live, hey?”
“Do you want to go and see your new home?” He stands.
I smile. “I sure do.”
“And this is the kitchen,” Clyde says as he shows me the last room of the caretaker’s cottage.
Only it isn’t a cottage, it’s a large and beautiful home.
Stone, a fireplace, two bathrooms, three bedrooms, and a study downstairs.
Seeing I have an office in the main house, I would turn the office here into a spare bedroom for when family visit.
Sally could come and stay whenever she wanted to. Maybe I could host Christmas this year?
Excitement screams through me.
“What do you think?” Clyde asks.
“I think….” I look around in awe. “When can I start?”
“Three weeks.” He holds his hand out to shake mine.
“Done.” We make our way outside and I walk out and get into my car.
I stare at the house in front of me while I collect my thoughts, did that really just happen?
I begin to drive down back to the main road; my mind is flicking between excitement and panic for all the things I have to get done in such a short amount of time.
Pack up the entire house into boxes and book a removalist truck.
That’s a massive job in itself. I’m going to purge everything we don’t need, there’s no use having all this extra stuff that we never use.
I’ll donate it, I wonder where I donate to these days… . Hmm.
First thing on the list I’m going to do is to get a storage unit for Melissa’s things.
I’ve been meaning to for a long time, but I haven’t been able to bring myself to do anything while the girls are around. Mummy’s things belong in Mummy’s wardrobe, Kaia told me once, and it broke my heart so hard that I haven’t touched a thing since.
I know that one day the girls will want answers and her possessions, and at least this way I can keep them safely stored for when that time comes.
I chew my thumbnail as I think, there’s so much to think about, what else….
My mind flicks to Sally, three weeks isn’t enough time for her to find another place or decide what she’s going to do. I can’t just kick her out on the street, perhaps she can come and stay here with us here for a while, just until she gets herself sorted. That could work.
Who knows, she might even like it.
I have to reroute my mail, resign from my job, tell all of my clients that I’m leaving.
Fuck…my anxiety rises at the mountain of tasks. I have to enroll the girls in school here, advertise for a babysitter.
Fuck….
I have to tell Mabel.
MADISON
After what has been the most wonderful weekend of my life, filled with tenderness, laughter and warmth, Andrew left to go and see his client and something changed.
I can’t put my finger on what exactly that is but I can feel it building.
Who did he go and see?
What happened to make him come back a different person?
Was it a woman?
The car ride home to New York is made in complete silence.
Andrew is driving, with one hand he’s holding my hand on his thigh, he’s staring at the road, silent as he chews his bottom lip. I don’t know what he’s thinking about, or where his attention has gone…but I know for certain that it is no longer here with me.
With every mile we drive away from our log cabin, I feel him pull further away.
My heart is beginning to ache at the loss of closeness and I wish I was imagining this but I know I’m not.
It starts to rain; the wipers brush back and forth, how do I salvage the feelings we shared only hours ago?
But I know how this ends. I’ve always known how this ends.
For two hours, we ride in silence. Every now and then Andrew smiles over at me and picks up my hand and kisses it as if only then remembering I’m still here sitting right beside him.
“You okay?” he asks.
“Yeah.” I force a smile.
“You’re quiet.”
“Just tired.”
“Worn out?” He gives me the look.
I nod.
My heart constricts at the sight, that look he gives me will forever be burned into my brain.
Dante’s words circle back to visit. Young and strapping. Could have anyone his own age but then comes to your multimillion-dollar penthouse, realizes you’re single, and suddenly he wants to do private house calls
And I can feel it, he doesn’t want to be here, this is a chore. There are two of us in the car but only one of us is here and in the moment.
He’s already checked out.
We pull into my street as a deep sense of regret washes over me, I shouldn’t have gone away with him. I didn’t need to put myself through this, what was I thinking?
“Just here on the street will be fine,” I say.
“You sure?”
“Uh-huh.”
He pulls the car to a halt and turns off the engine. “I was thinking…” he says as his eyes flick over to me. “Do you want to come over to my place tomorrow night…and meet the girls?”
My eyes hold his, of all the bastardly cold things he could ever say, he chooses that.
“No.” I open the door and go to get out before he grabs my hand and pulls me back.
“No?” He frowns.
“No.”
He blinks as if surprised. “I know it’s soon…but?”
“I have to go,” I snap, I pull out of his grip and climb out of the car and he gets out too. He collects my suitcase from the trunk. “Thanks.” I take it off him.
“What’s wrong?” He frowns. “Is everything alright?”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re not acting fine.”
“Goodbye, Andrew.”
“Do I even get a kiss goodbye?”
I glance back at my building to see the two doormen. “There are people around.”
“So?”
“I don’t kiss in public. Thanks for a great weekend.” I turn and walk off.
I can see his reflection in the windows of my building, he’s standing with his hands in his pockets as he watches me.
And he knows that I know, and I know that he knows.
Nothing lasts forever.