Introduction and Prologue

This first of two books covers a lot of ground geographically and spiritually. The journey begins with Peter and Maggie’s love story and includes a move across country to a new home in a new city, and new life. As a series the story covers over a century. Language changes over time, regionally and colloquially, so the language I use in the beginning is different from that in the middle and in the end. Words, phrases, and cultural constructs were more formal, less contracted in the early 1900s. My characters learn over time how to say more with fewer words. I have tried to do that as well.

Attention to the accuracy of historic events is important and provides authenticity for the characters’ actions, but it is fiction so don’t get your britches in a bunch if you discover something not quite in sync.

The first character you meet and narrator of the story is the family home, established in 1906.

Prologue

Dust to Dust, Doors to the Future

As generations come and go, each tries a hand at remodeling their environment, sometimes tearing down parts of their past and present to create a new possibility, a better future. Sometimes the building of this better future includes complete demolition of the past, turning the current into mere memories, and ultimately dust. Sometimes, only minor remodeling is undertaken, preserving the best of what has gone before; sometimes re-purposing the dust of the tear down to create a better mortar in setting a new corner stone. All actions, all choices however small, made by an individual or group, create ripples that flow out, inevitably affecting the whole.

Demolition day has not yet arrived for me, but I feel it in my bones, in my creaking floorboards and groaning rafters…it may be soon. Many of my “modern” features have outlived their original purposes and now serve only to amuse or baffle the current generation; some of those features have been replaced with sleeker, more energy efficient designs. Features deemed useless fade from the spot light, retreat to the background to be covered over by layers of paint, the odd piece of furniture, and paneling. These veneers cover the stories, good and bad, relegating what was once important to detritus.

Progress does not always require total deconstruction, but I watch as around me old bricks are replaced by shiny steel, glass, and concrete. For this reason I bow to the urgency of my soul; I tell my story while I am still standing, before I too fall victim literally and figuratively, to the inevitable.

Just as new concrete contains particles of past structures, people are constructed of the DNA building blocks handed down from their ancestors. So, let us get to the business at hand before I become the very DNA dust used to mix the new mortar to build the new “now.”

To lay the groundwork – my own foundation – I introduce you to my founding family, Peter and Maggie. Occasionally, like now, the voice you hear telling the story will be mine, from my basement and bay windows, my furnishings and décor, and from these very walls. More often the voices are my inhabitants as they live, grow, change, and die.

If these walls could talk, well, this would be their story. Listen to what they have to say.