The Art of Inheriting Secrets

by Barbara O'Neal

The vision pierced me. All at once, I realized maybe it could be a home eventually. Maybe not all of it—who wanted to live in thirty-seven rooms?—but some big portions of it.

From my purse, I took my sketchbook and flipped through it. Here was a small record of my time in England. The lemon chicken soup at the earl’s, the strawberries I had bought after tasting them at Helen’s, a page full of spices tumbling down in a diagonal line, star anise and cardamom pods, cumin seed and coriander.

When I got to a clean page, I started sketching from memory my mother’s kitchen. The windows overlooking her garden, the backsplash she’d always hated and never replaced, the curtains. I’d taught myself to cook in that kitchen because my mother was hopeless and had never learned to like it.

I slept a solid eleven hours, falling far away into the other lands where the sleep spirits knitted me back together. When I awakened, my mind was as clear and sharp as the sunlight of the late-spring day outside my window.

“You really see things as they are. The beauty—or maybe the particularity—of everything, and you’re fond of it all. Awe is in all of it.” I inclined my head. “There’s a lot of wisdom in that, being so present.”

I see you, you know.” He swallowed. “And I see you.” “What do you see?” “Intelligence and curiosity and open-mindedness. A certain delicacy, a little brokenness.”

there in front of us was Rosemere, the sun striking the windows with gold, setting the stones afire with rose.

“It’s been standing here for six hundred years,” he said quietly, “those very windows looking out to those very same fields. It’s hard to even imagine what that means, six hundred years.”

“Water. Cinnamon stick, star anise, whole allspice”—I held my place with one finger—“which is a very nice touch, by the way. Whole peppercorns, cloves, cardamom pods, coriander, ginger, black tea.”

“That isn’t who you are. You’re afraid. And you cannot have a life of great meaning if you make decisions out of fear.”