— The Night Before
Aria
Eleanor and James arrived tomorrow.
That was the fact sitting in the house on Sunday evening, not threatening, not complicated, just there — a warm, slightly electric anticipation that was completely unlike any other anticipation this house had contained in the last four weeks.
Good anticipation.
The kind that made you check the guest rooms twice and buy too much food and change your mind about the flowers on the hallway table three times.
My mother had spent Saturday afternoon in the east wing doing things with linen and lighting and small decorative choices that turned two adequate guest rooms into something that felt genuinely welcoming. She didn’t ask for help. She just appeared with fresh towels and a look of focused purpose and got on with it, and when I
