2: Allea

six

"Miss Allea, Sir Elijah is here."

After a knock, a voice followed inside Allea's room.

Sitting comfortably on the Scandinavian couch, her hands were lightly moving across the laptop, which halted at the voice from the door and she raised her eyes toward it as she gave her response, "Okay, I'll be there."

During the few seconds that followed the helper's departure, Allea sat there calmly, her gaze drifting to the laptop screen but failing to focus.

Her face was expressionless, but the light shining inside the room from open curtains of the windows illuminated the thoughtfulness her light brown eyes fell in — since the last time she met Elijah, he promised to stop by the weekend, any other day this could have considered normal, but she has some idea why he was here on this particular Saturday morning. For the past few days, she could feel his uneasiness whenever he texted her, making Allea eagerly wait to meet him to clear any misunderstanding he holds regarding her behavior at their previous meal.

Closing the laptop and wearing her sandal-slippers, she stood up and directly walked out of her room, dressed in comfortable jeans and a loose plain peach t-shirt. Her steady steps carried her downstairs toward the living room, there was no one so without asking she turned toward the atrium. Long ago they stopped welcoming guests in the atrium, Elijah, on the other hand, enjoys spending time in this area of the mansion since it is tranquil and beautiful — Allea only visits there whenever Elijah goes there, and sometimes to see Kai when she can't find him anyplace else.

In the atrium, in the middle is a swimming pool which is surrounded by four walls, the crystal clear water refracts the light shining from the mirror doom-shaped roof that covered it and the mirror wall opposite to it. This mirror roof is connected to one mirror wall which opens up to the one face outer garden (which now has become a soccer field for Allea and Kai). In a time of Odgen Allgaier's life, when the parties were usual in the mansion, the mirror wall was often opened to join the garden and the atrium.

The right side of the mirror wall connects to the enormous drawing-room that contains numerous pieces of precious art (from famous artists all around the world and most importantly Kai's mother's paintings) along with the sumptuous seating arrangements, which mostly consist of antique furniture and decor.

While for the other two walls — one opposite to the garden consisted of a vast shade supported by bulky pillars, where a long bar along with all the place for barbeque and wooden furniture for people to sit. And its adjacent wall is hung with a lot of mirrors, reflecting everything in the atrium, as well as a wooden door that connects to the inside of the mansion, and from where Allea stepped inside.

Allea crossed the pool to enter the drawing-room, where she found Elijah gazing at a large collection of paintings filling up two of the walls with his back to her.

"How many times have you stared at them till now?"

At Allea's voice, Elijah's turned around with a smile on his face and playfully added, "A few hundred, I guess," His gaze once again turned toward the painting, and it sounded solemn, "They are beautiful and happy, no matter how many times one sees them."

Allea's gaze also moved toward the paintings, which are nothing compared to one percent of art in the rest of the room in terms of technique, sharpness, and precision, but this collection of the fifty-five painting contains the life of Sarah Odgen(Kai's mother) from the point Kai came into their lives to the moment she died.

After Sarah Odgen retired from helping her husband in business, she devoted all her time to her hobby, painting. That was also the time Kai was born, he became her center of world and creativity —some paintings have three of them, some have only two (either Kai with his mother or father) and some have only Kai. From the first painting of drawing themselves, Odgen and Sarah, when they first saw Kai, to the last painting of Kai's tiny-self cutting the cake of his fifth birthday and the family of three laughing and as both his parents had their arms around him and gazing at him with emotions similar to the first painting.