seasonsalphaomega

The Alpha and Omega

The House of Four Seasons

By Atonia Walpole

I forget it’s still spring. So much has happened here since December when my rock, my earth, gave way beneath my feet and I began falling, spiraling downward until caught and brought back to the surface. Jack has given me once again exactly what I needed. He left this morning. I will never see him again but I think a part of him will always be in my heart.

It’s been a bittersweet day, this last day that I will spend here alone. I’ve walked the property reliving so many memories. I’ve been over the house doing the same thing. I have to say many tears have been shed this day. My meeting yesterday with Max is still in my mind. If he had not hesitated, if he had come straight out and said yes, things might have gone differently. I think he realized this before he left. I know he was not ready for it to end, was not ready to take that final step with me away from here. I can understand. Why wouldn’t you want to stay here? There is everything your heart could desire here, life without a care in the world, life without end. I have closed the door on Max and locked it, but it was a hard door to close.

Terry’s love that he asked me to keep warm has warmed me, filled me today. His gold band gleams on my finger tonight, tomorrow he will come for me and when he is ready we will leave. We will face whatever is to come together. I know he has no fear of the future. He has prepared for it. My grandmother’s house awaits us. Whether we will stay there I do not know. That will be up to Terry, but it is start. It is the beginning.

I soaked in my tub tonight. Everything I’ve done today carried so many sweet memories. So much love has taken place in my room and in this house. It all began with John and without him nothing else would have happened after that first year. I thought of Maximus today. Many times I wished I could sit and talk with him. I wonder if he had any idea of what he opened up in me? For me he was fire and he lit a fire I didn’t know existed, but it led me to Terry and for that I will be forever grateful.

My magical life here is about to end but, oh, the life we will embrace tomorrow will have its own magic.

Part 1:

He had not come at dawn as was usual for Terry and Toni was beginning to think something was wrong. Of course it was different now. This was not to be a seasonal visit. Jack had not told her what to expect. Perhaps he didn’t know himself. She’d been up for hours, pacing back and forth from his room to the stairway, down stairs, out the front door, back inside, out the back door. Mille gave up on her and sat on the front porch.

She was going to take Terry out, take him away from the house. They would be traveling to Virginia after a stop off in Boston. She had it all planned out even down to the things she would take from the house, her own belongings and the basket and painting Terry had bought her. She’d spent a moment looking in her jewelry box at the rings lined up. She touched each one with a kiss on her finger but did not remove them or try them on. They were not hers anymore. She would leave them to the magic of the house, the magic that would transfer from her and Terry when they left.

She’d come back inside from a pace around the terrace and the front door was open. “Terry!” she called, but there was no answer. She ran up the stairs but he was not there. Back down stairs she went out the front door. Millie was missing, too. She called again and again no answer. She walked around the side of the house, coming up in the back yard, and saw him. He was sitting in the grass next to the bluff with Millie in his lap and she called to him and started running.

Terry heard her and stood up, his face revealing the excitement he felt. “Toni…!” she was in his arms.

“Oh, Terry, darling...” He silenced her with a kiss. “I couldn’t find you.”

“I couldn’t find you, either, so I walked out here. This is the first place I ever saw you.”

“You know it’s you?”

“Yes, luv, I know.” He couldn’t hold her tight enough or kiss her long enough.

“I’m so happy, Terry.”

“So why are you crying?”

“I’m not. These aren’t tears. You didn’t come at dawn. I didn’t know what was going on. I was beginning to think something had happened.”

“Nothing has happened except I went through the transition. I am not a figment of your imagination any longer, no longer an illusion. For once I can say I am as real as you are, and today, Toni, you are .”

“Amazing! You don’t look any different.” She smiled, his face in her hands.

“Are you packed?”

“Not yet but I know what I’m taking. Let me know when you’re ready to go.”

“I’m ready anytime. There is nothing holding me here now but you.”

He helped her pack her car and hunted out the cat carrier for Millie. She seemed to know she was to leave and walked into the carrier without a protest.

“Is there anything you want to do before we leave?” he asked, closing the back of the jeep.

She looked wistfully back at the house and then to Terry. “No, everything I want is in you.”

He moved to her and took her in his arms, looking into her eyes. “Save that thought, luv,” he whispered, brushing his lips across hers, “until tonight, away from here, a place where there is only you and I…and the cat.”

She smiled, took his face in her hands and kissed him. “I will save that thought.”

Terry backed the jeep out of the garage, took one last look at the house, and drove to the gates. They were open. He stopped the vehicle just outside and watched them close behind them. “Are you going to miss it…the magic?”

“The magic? No, I don’t think so, Terry. I felt it leave me but it didn’t leave a void. I’m filled.”

As the gates closed, the house was sad to see them go but another eternal love had been fulfilled and thus it was satisfied. It set about removing all traces of her existence there, the rooms were closed and cleared, an empty house now but full of the essence of the love she shared there. An advert would appear shortly on the internet under New England real estate, “House for Rent.”

Part 2:

They stopped off in Boston to visit her Auntie, who was very glad to see Terry again. She hugged him before they left and told him she was glad he was the one. He looked at her, tilting his head and smiled. She had known all along. He promised they would keep in touch.

It was late when they pulled into a motel in Wilmington, Delaware. Terry was tired of driving but he wouldn’t let Toni behind the wheel. She went with him to check in, still not quite sure how he would do in the outside world. She needn’t have worried. He was an old hand at hotels. He took the overnight bag she’d packed to their room and placed in on the luggage rack.

“You’re tired darling,” Toni began, massaging his shoulders when he sat on the side of the bed. He pulled her between his legs and rested his head on her breast.

“I am, but it’s a good tired, Toni.” He looked up at her and she kissed him softly.

“Our first night away from it all. I still can’t believe it.” She kissed the top of his head.

He slid his hands under her tee shirt. “Do you feel differently toward me?”

“No, you’ve only to touch me and I get that tingle that runs the length of me.”

“Is that what it is, a tingle?”

“It starts out that way, then a warm flush and an ache. Oh, Terry!” His mouth had found her breasts and her knees were going. They came out of their clothes and lay together at last, finding they had lost nothing between them when the magic left.

No longer having to worry about being away from the house, they took their time winding their way down to Virginia. Once in Richmond Toni directed him through the city and out into the country. As he turned onto a narrow paved road, she stopped him at a set of black wrought iron gates.

“More gates?” he commented.

“Ah, but I know where the key is to these,” she smiled and got out, walking past the gate to a pile of stones. Reaching in, she pulled out a little metal box, opened the gate, and he drove through.

The drive was long and bordered with huge old trees that met over the road. “This is quite a place,” he observed as he pulled up in front of the house in the circular drive.

“I guess it is, Terry, and I know every inch of it. I can’t wait to show you around.

Terry opened the back and set Millie’s little cage on the ground. “Do you want to let her out?”

“Yes, I’m sure she’s ready. Now to find the key…” The key was under an empty flowerpot on the edge of the wide, covered front porch. She opened the double doors and stepped back. “Terry, I want you to enter with me.”

He came up the stone steps, took her hand and went through the doors with her. They were in a wide hallway that ran the depth of the house to another set of double doors that led outside. She turned to him, putting her arms around his neck.

“Welcome home, Terry.” Love filled his eyes as he pulled her closer to him and moved in for a deeply loving and satisfying kiss.

She led him down the hallway and unlocked and opened the back doors, revealing a large expanse of green space beyond the brick patio that was shaded with huge old oak trees. “The house needs airing out. It’s been closed up for nearly a year. We can open all the windows.” She turned, looking up at him.

His eyes were soft as he returned her look. “Where do we start?”

“Upstairs. We need to choose a bedroom. There are six of them.”

“Six! This is a lot of house, Toni.”

“Mamam said when she first moved in here it was filled with people coming and going. Then my father came along after my grandfather died. Not so many people came then, but when he married my mother they lived here.”

“You lived here all your life?”

“No, they’d moved to California and lived in LA. That’s where I was born but they used to come back here frequently. They were on the way to the airport when the accident happened. I don’t remember it now but Mamam flew out and got me and brought me back here.”

After viewing all the bedrooms Terry felt a connection to her grandmother’s room. Maybe it was because he knew the man who had occupied this room had come along a similar path to what he had. It was the largest of the rooms, a suite really, with a sitting room attached, two dressing rooms and a large bath. French doors led out onto a balcony and he turned back, looking into the room. It had a similar feel and look to the one in the cottage. There was no ocean view but a nice one of the property. He spotted a pool with pool house.

Toni came up behind him and put her arms around his waist. “Do you think you might feel at home here, Terry?”

“I think so, Toni. Have you noticed how similar this room arrangement is to the one in the cottage?”

Toni looked around. “It is somewhat. Colors are different. Mamam always like blue and white. That’s odd, isn’t it…very similar.”

Terry smiled, “Not really. Are we ready to tackle the downstairs?”

Having wrestled with the last of the windows and doors, they went outside and walked around and down to the pool. “It has occurred to me, Toni, that you are going to need some help with this place. It’s much too large for you to take care of by yourself. I’ll help you, of course, but you might think about hiring some help.”

“I believe her old housekeeper is still alive. I’ll contact her and find out who Mamam used for the grounds and the pool. We don’t have to stay here, love. That’s up to you. I thought it was a place for us to start out.”

Terry laughed, “It will only go downhill from here if you’re looking to me. Not sure I could afford anything like this. I’m used to small flats.”

“We can keep it as a base, a place to come to. I’ll go anywhere you want me to. As long as I am with you, it doesn’t matter where.”

“That may depend on what kind of work I find. I know what I can do. It’s just finding a company where I can do it.”

Toni thought about what he did and squeezed her eyes shut. There was no magic to protect him now. “There’s no hurry, is there?”

“No, we’ll be okay for awhile, but it’s something that I will have to do eventually.”

Toni was quiet for a minute, trying to find something else to think about. “Groceries…we have to go shopping for food. This house won’t provide. Everything was emptied out last year.”

“Learning to live again without magic,” he smiled, taking her hand and walking back to the house.

“Terry, how is it for you now? Is it different? Do you feel different.”

“Somewhat different. I know there is nothing for me to fall back on. I have to make it happen on my own. I still have all the memories I ever had. I’m still the same person. It’s all forward now. All the doors have closed behind me except for one, the one that held you. That’s the only one that ever really mattered to me, the one I held open and waited for you to come through.”

“You didn’t ever doubt that I would come through, did you?”

“I tried not to, but I was worried about Max. Out of the three he was the one I thought might walk through that door with you.”

“He wasn’t ready for it and when he saw the receipts for the money transfer and the note to me, he said you had me. It wasn’t easy for him.” She remembered the tears in his eyes when he’d kissed her goodbye.

Terry understood exactly what Max had felt. It could have been him. “You’re not sorry, are you?”

“No. How could you ask that? I kept your love warm, Terry, for a very long and heartbreaking time. It’s what sustained me, kept me going.”

“Ah, now…I know a certain sailor helped you along.” He raised a brow.

Toni smiled, “Yes, he did. Now, then, should we make a list or just go buy one of everything?”

Terry tightened his arm around her waist. “You’re right. All that is behind us now. Hey, one of everything, definitely.” They came through the back doors and entered the gleaming clean, empty of food kitchen.

“You know I have never been in a supermarket like you have here in the states. I may get lost.”

“I’ll put you in a buggy like they do small children. Ha! Do you think I will risk losing you now after what we have been through?”

“You never have to worry about losing me, Toni, and I will always know where you are.”

“Oh? Do you have a built in homing device? I can never hide from you?”

“Why would you want to?” He goosed her in the ribs, making her jump and giggle. “And, yes, I do a little something added,” he grinned.

“Are you serious?”

Terry laughed, “Had you going, didn’t I! Now where is this wondrous shop you’re taking me to?”

Toni handed him the car keys. Something was different about him. He was lighter somehow, as though a weight had been lifted from him. “I'll navigate. You drive.”

They pooled their money at the grocery, not thinking about their new non-renewable wallets. Tomorrow they would go to the bank and get the bank account set up so that both could draw from it.

Terry carried the bags in the house and Toni put things away. “Too bad we didn’t have enough for the bottle shop. I could use a drink.” Terry placed the last bag on the work table in the middle of the kitchen.

“You know what? In the library there used to be a liquor cabinet. It was kept locked but I found the key when I was a teenager. Let’s go look and see if there is anything left. Mamam did like a drink and kept some for visitors.”

Toni pushed the library ladder over and climbed up, reaching for a book. “She kept it in the Bible, thinking I would never look there…but I figured it out because I knew how her mind worked.” Toni pulled the Bible out and the key clattered to the floor. “Isn’t it funny after all these years she still kept it locked, like anyone was going to sneak in here and steal a bottle of liquor.”

“How many did you steal?” he asked.

“Only one and I was caught, but I did find out if you added water to a vodka bottle, you couldn’t tell any was missing.”

“You must have given her many headaches growing up.”

“I probably did. I was a typical brat. Anything left in there?”

“Oh, yes, enough to see us through the night.” He poured them both a drink and handed her a glass. “For making my dreams come true.” He kissed her softly, touched her glass and took a drink.

“You loved me enough for it to happen and you lit my fire, Terry Thorne.”

“Did I? You were smoldering when I met you.”

“Did I burn you?”

“You know you did, but then I like it hot. I like the heat.”

“So I found out.” She took a drink, her eyes locked with his. “How hot, Terry?”

He set his drink down, his eyes not leaving hers. She watched them darken.

A slow smile began across her lips as she reached for him, pulling him against her. He took her glass from her hand and set it down. “Do you have any idea how much I love you, Terry?”

“No, no idea. You’re going to have to show me. Upstairs about now would be a good time for you to start a fire.”

Toni smiled and took him by the hand, leading him up the wide staircase to their bedroom. Millie scampered off the bed and ran down the hallway, trying to decide which bed suited her now that the big one was taken over. Having a look and a sniff, she decided on the room at the end of the hallway, a girl’s room full of antique dolls and rock star posters and a bed full of stuffed animals she could hide in.

Part 3:

Toni was taking Terry on a proper tour of the house after they had breakfast in the kitchen. “This wing was added back in the thirties for the kitchen and casual dining and food storage, utility rooms, etc. Upstairs are guest rooms now but they used to be for live- in help. Not many people have that anymore.”

“Did you call your former housekeeper?” he asked as they walked from the wing back into the original part of the house.

“Yes and she said she’d like to come back if we wanted her to. I was going to ask you about that. She would live in again if she did. Right now she’s living with a daughter.”

“Call her. It's fine with me…we’ll have to get used to having someone else around all the time.”

“True. Will that be a problem for you?”

“Not for me…no. This place is big enough. I wouldn’t think it would bother me at all. When was this part built?”

“The original part was built in 1830 and has been modernized many times but the woodwork is all original. You know they had to add bathrooms and electricity and running water. Mamam had it air conditioned in the 60’s. She’s updated the kitchen and bathrooms over the years, liked her creature comforts. She made this back parlor into a den, then there’s the front parlor, big dining room and this room that’s kind of a mish mash right now. She painted and her supplies are in here, her desk and computer.”

“Will you change anything…make it yours instead of your grandmother's?”

“I’ll work with you to make it ours, Terry. We can change anything we want to. I intend to change out the bedroom we’re sleeping in. I want this to be ours, not mine, ours. You’re a part of this now. It needs your input, your stamp.”

“You’re not asking me to decorate, are you, because I know nothing about that. I’ll leave that up to you. I might like this room, though, as an office…well, it depends.”

“It’s yours then. We can clean it out. You can have it the way you want it.”

They wandered into the den and sat down on the big overstuffed sofa. “When I came out I had what appears to be a valid British passport and driving permit. The passport has many stamps from the places I’ve been in…the netherworld. You know who I worked for there. I’d like to go to London. I don’t expect to find the company I worked for, but there may be something, Toni. I feel like I need to look into it. I remember so much about London. I lived there, you know.”

“Yes, you did. Well then, we’ll go. We’ll find out what is real and what wasn’t. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?”

“Yes it would put my mind at rest about…a lot of things.”

“How soon do you want to go?”

“Oh, let’s give it a month. We’ll be settled by then, I would think.”

Toni smiled, picked up his hand and kissed the back of it. She had an idea what he wanted to check out and it hurt to think it might not be real. She had little hope he would find a son in England. He wasn’t a character in a movie anymore and that, she was beginning to realize, might pose a problem for him. If nothing he knew before her was real, it was going to be hard for him to reconcile that fact.

“I think we will be settled, love. We need to go to the bank today and get that sorted. I need to find my passport and make sure it hasn’t expired. Oh, there’s a lot to do, Terry, and here we sit doing…nothing.” She kissed his cheek.

“Toni, I want you to know that whatever we do or don’t find in London, I do not and will never regret this, not ever. I know what I have with you is real. No one is putting words in my mouth when I say I love you and want to be with you.”

“You’re going to make me cry.” She wiped a tear escaping from the corner of her eye.

“No, I’m not.” He stood up and pulled her from the sofa. “I’m going to make you go to the bank and get us sorted so we can buy an ice cream or a bloody gallon of gas.” He kissed her lips and smiled.

Weeks passed and Toni and Terry were slowly making the house theirs. Betty Muncie joined the household as housekeeper and Toni was glad to see her. She’d been there from Toni’s teen years and she had dubbed her Munchie. The name stuck and she’d always called her Munchie. A pool company was contracted to keep up the pool and its equipment and a landscaping company called in to keep the grounds mowed and trimmed.

They were working in the room Toni declared to be Terry’s office, clearing out old dried up paints and torn canvas. Toni elected to keep the completed drawings and paintings with an eye to hanging them on the walls. Her grandmother never displayed her work and she was interested in what she had done.

Finding an old sketchbook one day, she opened it and quietly left the room with it. A little later Terry came out with a large garbage bag,took it through to the back patio and found her sitting on a stone bench with the sketch book.

“What have you got there?”

“Terry…I’m not sure. Come and look at this…how did she know?”

He sat beside her. “Know what, luv?”

He recognized the sketches immediately, the pond, the house, the view from the bluff. “She was there, Toni.”

“But when? How could she have been there…she never told me about being at the house.”

“Perhaps she never wanted you to know. Your Auntie told me about a small sketch she’d sent her in a card one time. She recognized the setting when she was there, when Jack brought us all home.”

“But…she was part of the magic then…why…who?”

Terry moistened his lips. “Have you ever taken a good look at the photos of your grandfather, and really looked at him?”

‘Who was he, Terry…you know don’t you?” Toni felt a nervous excitement flow through her.

“You know him as Dean Stanley, but his name, the one he went under, was James Dean. He was an actor, Toni.”

“Rebel Without a Cause, that James Dean?”

“Yes.”

“Oh!” Toni stood up and walked away stopped and turned. “Why did she never tell me?”

“He came from the house, Toni. He was magic at one time as was she. She recognized us for what we were in the hospital. She knew Max and the rest of his brothers. Don’t you remember her telling you she knew where you were?”

“Yes, but I didn’t understand exactly what she meant. Oh, Terry…I can’t believe it!” Toni held her arms and paced back and forth. “But he was a real person, not a character. How could she…?”

“I don’t know, Toni.”

“He had a sister, my Auntie Sara. His life was real, Terry.”

“I suppose you could have asked for anyone…I’m glad you asked for me.”

Toni met his eyes. “So am I…oh, so am I, Terry!” She moved to him and he took her arms in his hands. “I wish I understood it all. A mystery, the magic is a mystery.”

“That’s why it’s called magic. If we knew all about it there would be no magic. Like a magician on the stage…tricks. This was real magic and something we can’t understand, something most people never know.”

“I was selected for the house because of my grandmother. I do believe that, Terry. I had a connection there already and didn’t know it. Oh, wow! I’m living proof…a fantasy can become reality. I wonder how she found out about the house, maybe an ad in the paper or something? There were no computers back then. Mamam…I would never have believed this of her. I wonder how long she stayed, who her seasons were?”

“Do you really want to know all, Toni? Would you want your granddaughter to know?”

“My granddaughter…?” She looked into his eyes. There would be children, and she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I don’t believe I would want her to know, but you…I’d want her to know you and how much I love you.”

Now that the magic no longer held her, she noticed her nails were growing and a weekly manicure was in order and toward the end of the month she had her first menstrual period in six years. That prompted her to ask Terry about having children and should she go on birth control or did he want children right away? He told her to let nature take its course.

“You don’t mind this, do you, the trip to London?” Toni joined him on the side of the pool.

“No, I think it’s important, Terry.” They were to leave the next day.

“I may find nothing, nothing familiar. I just have to know.”

“I understand that. I want to know, too.”

“Are you coming in?”

Toni smiled, knowing she would get in the pool on her own or he would pull her in. She stood up and dove in, coming up beside him. He held her arms for a moment, his face unreadable, and he pulled her close to him and kissed her in the way he could that sent everything out of her mind but him, the feel of him against her, the fire he lit in her belly that ached to be quenched as only he could do.

ON TO THORNE IN LONDON

**The story of the House of Four Seasons continues with a new resident:

ON TO A PAINTERLY EYE ARRIVES

BACK TO EARLY SPRING

BACK TO SNOW MELT

BACK TO INTO FALL

BACK TO SUMMER SEASONINGS, PART 1

BACK TO SPRING LOVE BLOSSOMS

BACK TO PART 1 OF WINTER SOLSTICE

BACK TO BONFIRE OF THE HEART

BACK TO ETERNAL SPRING

BACK TO THE HEART IN WINTER