PROLOGUE

SPRING 1986

Two policemen crawled through the opening, following her. Flashlights lit a thirty–year collection of cobwebs, some gray and matted, others silky white with fresh prey folded into delicate netting. To the side, desiccated remains, soft white fur sticking up in patches on leathery hide. No face to identify the animal—probably a coyote kill from a couple years ago. Cat? Rabbit?

            “This is kind of creepy.” The officer adjusted his gun belt.

            Her unspoken words, oh great­­—a couple cops afraid of this old cellar?

“Stairs.” Connie pointed, “Just over here—it’ll be OK. Watch your heads, there’s a bunch of beams.”

Connie’s got direct lines for both the local fire chief and the police. I’m Owl’s Nest, an old house that’s seen better days–fires in the hearth and light through my leaded windows, children dancing across thresholds into adult parties. My last owner died here, and I’ve been abandoned for some years–who knows how many? I can feel all of this in my dried–out siding, once fresh cedar shingles. Dust lies on my windowpanes, at least what’s left of them. There’s crust on my counters and cabinets, rusted–out toilets and sinks with no faucets. Teenagers break my doors and windows for nighttime parties and spray paint plakas on my lath and plaster walls, defecate on the carpet.

Connie, this thirty–six–year–old mother, has decided that I am worth saving. We have no idea how to make it happen.

PART ONE

I would rather be able to appreciate things I cannot have than to have things I am not able to appreciate.

Elbert Hubbard

CHAPTER ONE

INTO DARK CORRIDORS WANDERING

Labor Day 1985

Our dream began with a migraine, a stab through the left eye, twirling flashes, and pain pulsing to my crown. The screw then reversed itself and jammed down behind the ear and into my neck.

On Friday night I negotiated the freeway until I arrived at the front door of our little bungalow. A carton of Ben and Jerry’s Fudge Brownie whooshed through the air. Don called out, “She’s home. Run boy! Run!Instead of dashing toward his father, two–year–old Eric careened through the room, and stopped at my briefcase, looked up and threw his arms around my legs. Don, Eric, and I flopped onto the brown plush couch and dissolved into laughter, ribbons of chocolate goo and sticky fingerprints marking the stereo speakers and coffee table. In the fridge, probably we’d find a couple raw carrots and maybe wine for Don, a can of cheese ravioli for the boy.

Three days later I still lay on the couch, drained, unable to even whimper into a pillow.

Labor Day 1985, a brutal mix of heat and smog. Brown and yellow weeds filled the canyon behind our bungalow. Dust blew up into the windows along with a lot of noise – chainsaws, laborers in orange suits. At midday Eric in his Superman pajamas, tried to fly by leaping off our dining room chairs. The roaring equipment and guys from the Los Angeles Fire Department brush clearance units had captured his imagination. Don grabbed the red nylon harness, leashed Superman up, and strode off down a grassy path, Eric trotting behind. Heavy equipment buzzed in the canyon below.

The big house in the canyon was a curiosity. We had often set sprinklers facing that parcel, afraid of the canyon fires that storm through Southern California. When Don approached the structure, he found it abandoned. No one lived there. The caretaker’s house showed evidence of someone living on site until 1982.  Daddy and the boy wandered through the big house, headed back up the hill, and found me on the couch, “Connie, this is something you ought to see.”The migraine hangover droned on. Daylight in our sunny living room made me dizzy and hiking wasn’t going to happen.

 “Hon, I went through that old house. It’s really beautiful, with a lot of interesting woodwork. Please come down with me.” I located my darkest black sunglasses and a wet bandanna, and followed him down the path, our little boy in tow. In retrospect, I didn’t even know the magnitude of that headache.  

The old white house had stood abandoned for years. Paint crumbled over cedar shingles and a black oily discharge leaked through. Sliding glass doors served as the entrance to the house, long since broken out of their bent tracks. An old pergola stood erect over slabs of broken concrete and faced a side door that led to an empty room with filthy linoleum and Formica counters. We could see wood counters underneath those.

Dark cool rooms pulled me in, a relief from the glaring sun and heat. Who knows how long since someone had lived here? The smell and feel of wood protected us from canyon dust and grit. Unusual entry doors measured fifty–three inches in width, made of heavy quarter–sawn oak that led into the widest hallways I’d ever seen. At some time she welcomed visitors, many of them.

 Dirt coated her hardwood floors, some of it loose, some ground in. A living room carpet prompted immediate needs for handkerchiefs, not tissue. I pulled off my bandanna, continuing to step into rooms, and touch her wood. Huge fireplaces had built–in inglenooks. Walked into a library, room after room with cabinetry and closets, porches and balconies. A lovely vaulted dining room, original tiles. She whispered a vision of soft light and wood polish.

We stepped into the kitchen. Pink and white wallpaper hung in strips. An empty room behind the kitchen showed more broken windows, wood frames pulled off the hinges. Lovely. Spotted burn marks in the floor and the remains of plastic dry–cleaning bags hung from rusty hangers, wrapped around empty light fixtures. All this vandalism— sprayed plakas—gang insignia, shattered windows and caked–up filth. Los Avenues, Cypress Park and others had laid claim to the old house.

“My God Don, she’s a mess, but we used to clean up really funky messes in Grandpa’s apartment houses. Someone can paint over spray paint; repair these plaster cracks. Dammit, I wish they weren’t breaking the windows. That’s a lot of work.” It was evident that a wealthy person with some taste should undertake a restoration of the home.

 Who built this once beautiful house, who abandoned it and why?