Our Sick Inheritance (editing)

Chapter 54 - Everyone's Got A Secret

For the first three hours of a silent house, Colin had started reading a book Anna had picked up for him in an old bookstore in Portland when she was doing some shopping last summer. He loved reading and she knew exactly what to choose for him. Remarkably he had fallen asleep sitting up after the first half hour of starting his book. Colin woke just in time to enjoy a great sunset alone. In others, opinion summer was the most exciting time to read in the glassed-in patio that led into a living room next to the library. The summer storms from this room were the best to witness. It was easy to enjoy the central air conditioning and not suffer the sweltering heat from outside.

To Colin, there wasn't anything like the winter. Sitting snug under throw blankets on lush furniture in the enclosed porch with the fireplace flaring heat to protect everyone from the cold white snow that covered the valley outside of the glass walls was more than divine.

The sun made an impressive exit shadowing iridescent colors across the snow. Colin stood outside for a moment and took in the last of the evening's glow. The transition from day to night felt like magic. The trees outside lit up the moment the sun went to bed behind the mountains. Colin loved the night. He had a keen vision at night. He had always found it exhilarating to walk in the dark so he could hear and feel with most people were oblivious to. All the detail work, which was serene during the day, was ominous during the night. Especially without all the Christmas lights on. However, the lights gave a lovely effect which took his breath away after all this time.

He stepped back into the house and locked the door behind him. Once Colin lit the fireplace, he allowed his body to relax. Plenty of glassed walls of the house gave a grand view of the garden with the valley below. It was magnificent especially when the streetlights started popping up everywhere to create the town's twinkling map. He could tell that most people had taken down their Christmas lights, with less than twenty houses remaining from his view as the city gave a peek at the edge of his mountain.

Colin had a fresh feeling of complete solitude. It was the feeling of true ownership of his personal space that made him appreciate his good fortune. He hadn't really been alone in anything he owned in a long time. Time was usually spent with people on the slopes, in meetings, or running to different territories to determine the expansion of new resorts. It was exhausting. Colin used to have the energy for it and attacked the day like bulldozers attacked broken down structures of wood. Lately, however, he felt like an old man trying to cross an expressway.

The shelves were much emptier since Colin sent most of his stuff to the island. He knew Nate was going to love putting his mark on the house. Nate had spent so much time living in his treehouse while he was up that it never really felt like lived in the house at all. Now he would be able to keep the simplistic lines and patchy texture that popped out in several areas of the house to show its personality with a color scheme he knew his girlfriend was going to force on him.

The wood moldings and built-in shelves were smooth under Colin's fingers as he walked around the room. The first owner of this house definitely expressed his love in each curve of iron and deep lushness of wood that withstood time. It was originally constructed by an oil billionaire who needed a place to get away and entertain on the other side of the States. It had been passed down two generations to a nephew who resided in Texas for most of his adult life and vacationed in the home alone on occasion. The nephew had planned to have a family and retire in the home but never got around to having any children before he died of a heart attack at the age of forty-two. Colin bought it two weeks later.

Colin thought it would have worked well as a recovery home, for the natural beauty that surrounded it healed his worries and doubts. He very well understood the desire to have something private and rich of beauty to enjoy. Colin empathized with the previous owners not to have outlasted the structure. Colin's own personal creation, the island, was something he relished in the building. He was proud of what he had done with the island and knew Anna was going to love it also. He just had to get her there to see it, and that was the hardest part.