A Vow to Keep

“I used to be an O’Brian,” Mildred said, laying claim to the house.

“How lovely,” Linda said, as if she meant it. She took both the old woman’s wrinkled hands in hers. “Would you be kind enough to show me the house?”

Mildred shot him a look loaded with satisfaction, as if she had finally been recognized. “I’d love to,” she said.

He unlocked the door. And then he was ignored as the two women explored the house together.

Mildred’s granddad had been the first owner of the house, which was built in 1912. Each of the rooms had a story. She knew the history of each of those additions and seemed terribly attached to the worst of the renovations, rooms divided, bathrooms upgraded.

The house was quite terrible inside—original hardwood covered under stained rugs, a distressing life collection of old stuff that no one wanted. There was extensive water damage under the kitchen sink and in one of the upstairs bedrooms, so the whole place smelled musty.

But the bones of the house—stained glass, gorgeous wood, high ceilings, architectural details that no one could afford anymore—were exquisite. Rick knew the Calgary market, and he knew that even if he invested a hundred thousand dollars in restoration costs he could make a lot of money on this house. And restore it to dignity at the same time.

He caught a glimpse of Linda’s face, and recognized what he saw there. Like him, Linda loved houses, plain and simple. Not the new cookie cutter ones, but ones like this, regal old ladies of nearly a hundred who had seen generations come and go, who had character in every line.

“Do you have pictures of the way it used to look?” Linda asked Mildred when they’d arrived back at the front door.

Mildred shot him a look that could only be called vindictive. “Hundreds of them.”

“Do you think I could see them?”

“For what purpose?” she asked Linda suspiciously.