Close to Home by Lisa Jackson Page B

and disheveled, his jeans worn, his shirt with a few wrinkles, the sleeves rolled up. Jacob, on the other hand, was wearing a polo shirt and crisply pressed khakis and appeared ready to step onto the first tee of a country club. “Once the renovations are complete, we sell this thing.”
    â€œOr you lease it to me, until I can buy it.” She eyed both her brothers. “That was the deal, remember? That we wouldn’t sell as long as Mom’s alive.”
    Jacob’s eyes darkened. “That could be decades!”
    â€œWe can only hope,” Joseph said, “Geez, Jake.”
    â€œIt’s not that I want her dead. Come on, you both know that. Even though, face it, Mom’s always been a pain in the butt.” He looked from his twin to his sister. “Oh, what? You don’t think so?”
    Rolling her eyes, Sarah said, “Fine,” and caught a bemused glance from Joseph.
    â€œI mean it, Sarah,” Jake said, “I’m not the one with a problem with Mom.”
    Joseph held up both hands. “We all have a problem with Mom.”
    â€œEnough! You guys didn’t come out here to badmouth Mother, so let’s get back on track, to the renovations,” Sarah said. “So here’s what we’ve got.” Sarah flattened the rolled plans across the table and secured the corners with dusty books she’d found in the library area of the parlor. A worn edition of The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty held one corner fast, while a gnawed copy of Louise May Alcott’s Little Women anchored another.
    â€œHere are the original plans,” she said.
    â€œSeriously?”
    â€œLook at the date. Nineteen twenty-one.” The brittle pages were yellowed, grimy, and covered in pencil notes. Smudged fingerprints and stains of undeterminable origin discolored the drawings. With great care, Sara stretched the fragile, often unintelligible pages. “The original house was pretty amazing, especially for the time. It had running water and electricity, which was huge. It wouldn’t have been such a big deal in a large city like San Francisco or even Portland, but out here that was a real accomplishment. Remember, the highway, I mean the old historic highway, wasn’t completely finished until nineteen twenty-two.” The faded architect’s plans showed the house as it had been built by Maxim Stewart, Sarah’s great-great-grandfather. “Maxim was an autocrat, by all accounts, and always got his way.”
    Jacob caught the mention of their ancestor. “Maxim? Isn’t that the old coot who killed his second wife? Angeline or something.”
    â€œAngelique,” Sarah corrected. “That’s the story.”
    â€œYou see her ghost running around yet? Isn’t she the one who’s supposed to haunt the place?”
    Sarah felt a chill that started at the base of her spine and crawled upward, but she thought she’d keep Gracie’s ghost sightings to herself. “Rumors,” she said. “People in a small town like to talk, live vicariously, or, better yet, exaggerate and make up stories.”
    Jacob said, “Yeah, but even you said you saw her.”
    â€œI was a kid,” Sarah snapped, a little too quickly. Her daughter’s panic attack from the night before was still too fresh. “Now, come on, we’ve got work to do.” While Jacob shrugged, dismissing the ghost, Joseph’s gaze lingered thoughtfully on her. She ignored them both and rolled out the second set of plans, dated 1950, and pointed out the addition of a bathroom and expansion of the kitchen. Finally, she spread architect’s drawings from 1978, which included yet another kitchen remodel, more electrical panels, the addition of a patio off the back porch, and a master bathroom that cut into an existing walk-in linen closet.
    Joseph studied each set. “Just about as many reincarnations as there have been