The elaborate and expensive wallpapers go up throughout the main floor. The trim. The details. The wood paneling, especially in the foyer. The banisters- each rail individually hand turned to look authentically imperfect and yet the same. No screaming cobwebs between them. No missing or broken pieces. No dust. No mold.

　　The molding went in too. First? I don`t remember. I remember that the molding we decided on was called ornamental something-something and it was very expensive. Mrs. Larson has only gushed about the choice since then. The house seems to like the decorations too. But she still sighs.

　　Lottie&. Sigh&.

　　Like that.

　　The giant oak wood panels were tricky to install. Jay took care of that part. He needed a very tall ladder specialized to stand on stairs to get the panels up high enough. Floor to ceiling paneling in a dark oak. The panels were tricky to install. They were heavy and expensive, and big which made them cumbersome and awkward to manipulate. And if you do it wrong you can ruin them. Because you don`t want to have nail heads sticking out of the panels` faces. That would ruin the effect. Jay had some friends come help him put the panels on the wall so he wouldn`t ruin any of them. I feel like I already went through that part? But the panels were tricky to install.

　　Stomp&. Stomp&. Stomp, stomp, stomp&. Sigh&.

　　Yes, yes, I`m coming to that.

　　The furniture returned. Well, it was brought in out of storage. The mister and missus apartments have their original beds restored and in place according to the original placements on the blueprints. The other Old English Oak furniture& a powder room table, a writing desk, and the china hutch have all been returned to their original places too.

　　Mrs. Larson couldn`t help her enthusiasm and started buying and bringing period accurate pieces to the house right after I told her I was ready to start shopping. I haven`t done much shopping. Mrs. Larson has seen to it that I haven`t needed to do much shopping at all. And then I made her my professional shopper and gave her a budget- since she was already volunteering herself, and she knows the sorts of pieces the house needs&. Soward`s mansion is coming together alarmingly quickly.

　　***

　　I don`t know why it`s taken me so long to start work on the outside. The weather is warming up. Warmed up? It sort of already has. But I am tired. Watching the guys pressure wash the outside of the house was fun, the mist of water casting rainbows in the sunlight.

　　Memories of playing with the garden hose- Thomas liked sticking his thumb over the opening to narrow the stream of water and try to spread it thin so the light would catch it and refract. It also increased the pressure of the water that escaped so the streams would travel farther. Thomas and Walter liked their water fights. But sometimes they would direct the streams of water at an unfortunate cat. Little boys can be cruel sometimes. Big boys can be cruel sometimes too.

　　The weather warmed up. I have a company replacing the deck right now. Mrs. Larson has really put her nose into all the projects. I`m not ever quite certain what I`m doing here, meddling in things, funding things. It`s really all I`m good for. The deck is being restored under Mrs. Larson`s supervision. If she wants to oversee every little detail for historical accuracy, more power to her? I`ll just&.

　　There are other projects that need attention. The house`s exterior is getting painted right now. It startles me a little every time someone`s face appears through the window while they sand and repaint the original, wooden siding of the house. White washed everything. The wood, the fancy trim, the new deck/porch/sunroom/stuff when it`s finished&. But the shutters and roof are a dark, slate gray. It`s oddly contemporary of a color palette, but it is also the original color choice as far as we can tell. At least, those are the colors that are, were, peeling off the wood.

　　Lottie&. Creak&. Lottie&. Sigh&.

　　I`m tired. I think I still have a headache. I should probably take something for it if I`m going to get anything productive done myself. I`m trying to conquer the weeds. The blueprints of the house include some of the original landscaping plans. The yard right now is so overgrown that I can`t hardly tell what`s in it, let alone whether any of the plants are original. But I saw some rose bushes. I know the blueprints included a rose garden. I wonder if the roses in the yard are original. Do roses live to be one hundred and fifty years old? I feel like I read an article about a rose bush in Germany that was over one thousand years old. I suppose it might be possible, but the plants in the yard currently are overgrown. I doubt the rose bushes will produce blooms without being seriously cut back.Stolen story; please report.

　　Ah! That`s what I forgot at the hardware store: one of those branch lopper things. I`m quite certain that I`m single handedly keeping Bits`n`Boards in business this year. Henry has been rolling out the royal treatment for me of late, and he called me his best customer last& last time I was there.

　　Sigh&.

　　I was going to do something.

　　I startle as a face appears in the window. And then he waves and my racing heart slows a bit. Just a painter. They are painting the house today. They have a crew of six or more? White. It`s a boring color. It symbolizes purity. That feels ironic for this old girl. She`s anything but pure. Just ask Sarah Atwood!

　　Sarah still hasn`t told her child`s father that she`s pregnant. Well, to the point I`ve read. She`s spent the month of May and most of June finding a gazillion different ways to express her fears of abandonment and abuse. But, if the online pregnancy calculator is accurate, and I`ve deduced Sarah`s due date correctly, she should be experiencing her long anticipated "quickening" soon.

　　Feeling your baby move in your belly for the first time is& surreal. Magical? Anxiety inducing. It makes sense to me why a society without modern medical technology would consider that moment as the point a fetus becomes "alive". We know better now. Of course, what constitutes "alive" changes definitions depending on who you ask&.

　　Creak&. Lottie&. Lottie&. Sigh&.

　　It`s too hot outside. I`m feeling wimpy today and would rather not get a sunburn. I have one of those wide brimmed yard work hats and sunscreen, but I`d rather stay inside with the air conditioning. And I don`t really want to talk with the painters.

　　Why white?! It`s so& boring. It`s so& out of character.

　　The Sowards were flashy people. They picked expensive everything and built an enormous mansion. And then they painted the outside white? Mrs. Larson insists that that was a common color for the exterior of a great house. But it is incongruent with the spirit of the house and the people who built her.

　　Sigh&.

　　***

　　2 July 1875

　　I felt my child! I cannot adequately express the fullness of my joy, but the moment has arrived, and with it relief and trepidation both. I have been lucky to not be discovered, but now I must confess to his father and then to my mistress. My final prayers for mercy and protection have been offered on behalf of the babe I carry, but I have packed my paltry belongings in case I am dismissed immediately and must seek refuge quickly.

　　3 July 1875

　　I cannot bring myself to record his words! God forgive me, but I shall despise and curse him forever more. Never shall he find forgiveness from me, for I shall meet him again in hell before granting him such grace. I would gladly suffer damnation with him to watch him burn for all eternity!

　　Wait. I flip the page, and then the next, and then the next, eventually grabbing hold of all the remaining pages of the diary to flip through them rapidly. They are blank. That`s it!? After enduring two and half journals worth of whining and miserable teenage stupidity and drama, that`s how it ends?!

　　There has to be more to it, right?!

　　I return to the last entry. 3 July 1875.

　　Her lover must have rejected her and their child. Maybe he said some horrible things? It kind of sounds like they fought. And why are there ink splotches all over the page?! And there are. Splotches that is. Discoloring the paper more than time alone would, they don`t make the words in any way illegible, but they are present and a bit distracting. Maybe she was crying so hard when she wrote this that the ink smudged?

　　But this is painfully frustrating.

　　I start flipping through the remaining pages one at a time. Blank& blank& blank& blank&. The last page is also blank on both sides. But&. The actual last page of this book has been torn out, the imperfect tear leaving behind a jagged edge.

　　That`s somehow even more frustrating.

　　She doesn`t name her lover. She doesn`t say what happened to her or her child. There is no explanation or closure or& or anything! And then the last page that may have held any one of those answers has been torn out. Gone.

　　But then, of course, it is also possible that that page never held any such answers. It is possible that at some point during the ownership of this diary, Sarah simply needed a piece of paper to write a love note or jot down something she needed to not forget.

　　Sigh&.

　　Tell me about it. I guess we`ll never know.