here at all.” And, almost like an exclamation point, this was followed by a loud beep.
I erased both messages and looked around the kitchen, amazed at how huge it was compared to the tiny apartment. Two completely different worlds. I could hear Rufus whining at the back door. He probably hadn’t been fed since yesterday. And the cat, Winnie, was nowhere to be seen. But that wasn’t so unusual. I went out to the laundry room and refilled Rufus’s water and food dishes as his tail beat happily against my leg.
“How’re you doing, old boy?” I asked, leaning over to pet his scraggly coat. Rufus was a terrier mix mutt that Jacob had brought home about ten years ago. He’d found the abandoned puppy on the street, and, despite Geoffrey’s allergies, there was no way I could deny my son this sad-eyed puppy. It had been agreed that Rufus’s domain would become the laundry room, a place where Geoffrey never went anyway, and we would install a doggy door that led to the backyard. Jacob would be the primary caregiver,although that didn’t last long. Soon I was tending to not only Rufus but also Winnie, the Blue Persian kitten that Sarah insisted she must have after our no-pet rules had been set aside for Rufus. The same restrictions applied to Sarah’s cat, but after a while the pets seemed to come and go with more freedom, and Geoffrey’s allergies seemed to magically disappear. I wondered now if he’d ever really had them at all. Perhaps it had just been a convenient excuse to exist in a pet-free world during the first fifteen years of our marriage. I refilled the cat’s water and food dishes and went back into the house.
I walked into the sunlit family room and looked around. The room was so perfect that it looked like a page torn from a design catalog. Of course, this had more to do with Geoffrey than myself. His taste had always ruled in our home, even when we were first married and his grandparents had generously purchased our first home as a wedding gift for us. Certainly, it was a modest home, at least compared to this one, but at the time it had seemed like a small palace to me. It was a brand-new, one-story ranch with three bedrooms and two baths. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly the sort of house I would’ve chosen, but then I hadn’t been asked. Just the same, I remember feeling a bit like a princess as I walked from room to room admiring the squeaky-clean newness of it all. I had imagined picking out warm and cozy furnishings, perhaps in the country style that was becoming popular at the time. I told Geoffrey my ideas, but he just smiled in a knowing sort of way.
“No need to worry about that,” he’d assured me. “My grandmother is doing a little redecorating, and she wants to give us most of her old furniture.”
Now I’d been to his grandparents’ expensive hilltop home several times, and while it was quite lovely and the furnishings were top of the line, they were definitely
not
my style. “But isn’t everything blue?” I’d asked. “And dated?”
“Blue is my favorite color,” he told me. “And the designs are classic.”
I suppose it was my own fault that I never admitted blue was among my least favorite colors. I’d always felt it was cold and formal and nothing like the sort of interiors I’d have chosen. But I convinced myself it was kind of his grandparents, and Geoffrey had assured me this would allow us to save money for our next home as well as the new furnishings to go with it. Meanwhile, I’d put up with blue velvet couches and complementing chairs, formal dark wood pieces, Asian lamps, and those numerous Oriental carpets I actually learned to appreciate in time.
And, true to Geoffrey’s promise, we eventually built this house and furnished it with new pieces. My plan, at that time, had been to select some attractive but comfortable neutral-tone furnishings, to bring in some informal antiques in golden oak tones, and then accent with warm and vibrant colors. But Geoffrey
I erased both messages and looked around the kitchen, amazed at how huge it was compared to the tiny apartment. Two completely different worlds. I could hear Rufus whining at the back door. He probably hadn’t been fed since yesterday. And the cat, Winnie, was nowhere to be seen. But that wasn’t so unusual. I went out to the laundry room and refilled Rufus’s water and food dishes as his tail beat happily against my leg.
“How’re you doing, old boy?” I asked, leaning over to pet his scraggly coat. Rufus was a terrier mix mutt that Jacob had brought home about ten years ago. He’d found the abandoned puppy on the street, and, despite Geoffrey’s allergies, there was no way I could deny my son this sad-eyed puppy. It had been agreed that Rufus’s domain would become the laundry room, a place where Geoffrey never went anyway, and we would install a doggy door that led to the backyard. Jacob would be the primary caregiver,although that didn’t last long. Soon I was tending to not only Rufus but also Winnie, the Blue Persian kitten that Sarah insisted she must have after our no-pet rules had been set aside for Rufus. The same restrictions applied to Sarah’s cat, but after a while the pets seemed to come and go with more freedom, and Geoffrey’s allergies seemed to magically disappear. I wondered now if he’d ever really had them at all. Perhaps it had just been a convenient excuse to exist in a pet-free world during the first fifteen years of our marriage. I refilled the cat’s water and food dishes and went back into the house.
I walked into the sunlit family room and looked around. The room was so perfect that it looked like a page torn from a design catalog. Of course, this had more to do with Geoffrey than myself. His taste had always ruled in our home, even when we were first married and his grandparents had generously purchased our first home as a wedding gift for us. Certainly, it was a modest home, at least compared to this one, but at the time it had seemed like a small palace to me. It was a brand-new, one-story ranch with three bedrooms and two baths. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly the sort of house I would’ve chosen, but then I hadn’t been asked. Just the same, I remember feeling a bit like a princess as I walked from room to room admiring the squeaky-clean newness of it all. I had imagined picking out warm and cozy furnishings, perhaps in the country style that was becoming popular at the time. I told Geoffrey my ideas, but he just smiled in a knowing sort of way.
“No need to worry about that,” he’d assured me. “My grandmother is doing a little redecorating, and she wants to give us most of her old furniture.”
Now I’d been to his grandparents’ expensive hilltop home several times, and while it was quite lovely and the furnishings were top of the line, they were definitely
not
my style. “But isn’t everything blue?” I’d asked. “And dated?”
“Blue is my favorite color,” he told me. “And the designs are classic.”
I suppose it was my own fault that I never admitted blue was among my least favorite colors. I’d always felt it was cold and formal and nothing like the sort of interiors I’d have chosen. But I convinced myself it was kind of his grandparents, and Geoffrey had assured me this would allow us to save money for our next home as well as the new furnishings to go with it. Meanwhile, I’d put up with blue velvet couches and complementing chairs, formal dark wood pieces, Asian lamps, and those numerous Oriental carpets I actually learned to appreciate in time.
And, true to Geoffrey’s promise, we eventually built this house and furnished it with new pieces. My plan, at that time, had been to select some attractive but comfortable neutral-tone furnishings, to bring in some informal antiques in golden oak tones, and then accent with warm and vibrant colors. But Geoffrey
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