Restoration [Shawn Mendes] AU

Chapter 22

Michelle's family home was located in the affluent on-island neighborhood just west of Montreal, called Mont Royal. It was actually its own independent municipality and a community of both old and new construction, as well as a lot of green space and city gardens that were appealing to all those who lived there. The centerpiece of Mont Royal was Connaught Park with four tree-lined boulevards leading to it from the outskirts of town. Mont Royal had become a very cosmopolitan place to live, as more bilingual residents moved there even though it had traditionally been mostly an English speaking community since the 1960's.

The Devereaux family had lived there for almost 30 years, since Maurice's law practice had become successful and Joanne had opened her own design firm, Designs by Devereaux, in Montreal. She had started off small, catering mostly to clients who required an interior decorator/designer for their home, but over the years had expanded to a full service design studio with a broad range of clientele that included not only homeowners, but also contractors for upscale office buildings, restaurants, hotels and restoration projects that required matching decor such as fabrics, wall paper, lighting and furniture pieces, to the specific era or time period of a particular space. It was a long way from her original plan of working as a set designer for television and movies in Hollywood when she had been a student at FIDM, but she loved what she did and loved having her own business and being her own boss.

Montreal had become a place where old construction was not torn down in favor of the modern, but instead was preserved and allowed to flourish among the new, finding new and innovative uses for wonderful old buildings and bringing them into the 21st century. Because of the work she did, Joanne had instilled a love of restoration in Michelle who already had that spark from childhood. She always had loved old houses and anything vintage, and would go on buying trips and searches for period pieces and accessories with her mother even when she was in elementary school if Joanne allowed it. In many ways, Joanne had always viewed her beloved daughter as an old soul, even when she was Beau's age.

The Devereaux home was one of those stately old century homes that had its own particular charm. It had been renovated and brought up to code with new plumbing and wiring, but Joanne made sure to keep the look and feel of the original structure. Even though it was a rather large home, she wanted it to feel warm and cozy and lived in, not like some perfect model home remake found in a copy of Architectural Digest.

The family had lived a rather charmed life when compared to many families and their ups and downs were typical of any other. That is until the fateful day their son-in-law and grandson were declared dead in absentia from being swept away at sea after their boat capsized in a storm off Cape Cod. The family was devastated and somewhat shell-shocked from this traumatic event, but they continued to support each other and carry on as best they could, not wanting to show the outside world how deeply heartbroken they really were. Maurice and Joanne kept as busy as possible in their professional lives so no one would see any chinks in their armor. The appearance they wanted to portray to their clients was that everything was fine, with no reason to fear that the services Maurice and Joanne provided would be hampered in any way due to family tragedy.