"So any other siblings I need to know about?" Deanne asked Griffen, as the two of them got their feet and ankles wet in the water at Old Orchard Beach that was only 20 miles outside of Portland. Not too far really, and only about an hour drive depending on traffic. Old Orchard Beach was a popular destination for citizens and tourists alike.
It was late Friday afternoon, and Deanne had taken half a day off as well as the weekend because as of tomorrow she along with Griffen and Mira were heading up to view the old Wilton estate or at least the gardens of it to see what had to be done to set them to rights.
"No, it was just Mira and me growing up," Griffen said. "Remember, I told you, you had more siblings than me as I know you have four."
"That's right you did, but I guess I had forgotten," Deanne admitted. "I've had a lot on my mind."
"When you have a lot on your mind, you can forget things," Griffen agreed. "So what have you been thinking about if you don't mind my asking. You don't have to tell me if you don't want to or if it's personal."
"Not really personal no," Deanne said. "It's more that I was dwelling on the fact that I'm really looking forward to seeing these gardens, even if I might not take the job, as I still haven't made up my mind on that. I already told you that I've always been really good with plants and enjoy having my hands in the soil, which is why I got my degree in horticulture."
"You did mention that yeah," Griffen agreed, even as he got his feet wet in the ocean, as he and Deanne were walking along the ocean shore, close to the water, barefoot, with their pants legs rolled up. "Do you know my sister thought it was funny when I told her about how you made a date with me a requirement of even coming out to take a tour of the Wilton estate gardens. I knew she would."
"I believe you said she had quite a sense of humor," Deanne remembered.
"I did say that and she does," Griffen agreed. "She also told me that I must've made a good impression on you and that you must really have liked me if you made it a condition of even coming out to see the gardens at the estate. She said you could have demanded a lot more than making a date a condition of coming to survey the site to at least give us advice on how to get it back into its former state."
The two of them strolled along the beach side-by-side, not quite touching, though they were certainly walking very close to each other.
"So why don't you tell me more about the Wilton estate that you inherited?" Deanne suggested.
"Curious, are you?" Griffen asked.
"Absolutely," Deanne agreed without shame. "If it has such a massive garden, then that means that there's a lot of land and also a very big house on the property. All these things just seem to go hand-in-hand, as it would take a lot of money to maintain a lot of acres of property in decent condition."
"You'd have to hire servants to take care of both the grounds as well as the house, as you'd never be able to do it all yourself. At the very least, you'd have to have an army of droids to take care of all the chores both inside and outside and usually only the really well off can afford a lot of those."
"I know a lot of people have droids to clean or look after their kids instead of human help, but it sounds like you need quite a few to look after this estate not just a couple," Deanne said.
"You're not wrong," Griffen admitted. "At the moment, there's only one housekeeper for the house that the lawyers in charge of the money that my uncle had retained. There used to be more servants, but they all quit or were fired some years ago when my uncle started to decline and nobody else was ever hired. The housekeeper also prepared my uncles meals and took care of him doing what she could."
"That's so sad," Deanne said. "Sad that your uncle died all alone, other than one servant who sounds as if if she was a housekeeper, the caregiver and the cook all rolled into one."
"That's about right," Griffen agreed. "Mira and I have retained her services and she's willing to stay on until we hire someone else, but she's old enough to retire and really should've done so at least five or six years ago, but stayed out of loyalty to my uncle. Now, that my uncle has passed though she's ready to retire."
"So the housekeeper will stay on long enough until you find somebody to take over," Deanne said and Griffen nodded.
"That's what we agreed on with Mrs. Monroe. She wants to move to be closer to her grandchildren, and those grandchildren live out to California," Griffen agreed.
"That's a long way from Maine," Deanne said. "You can't really blame her though, now that her employer is dead. That she stayed and took care of him for who knows how long just shows that she had a lot of loyalty to the man that employed her, which is something you can't say about a lot of people nowadays."
"True," agreed Griffen. "In any case, there's plenty of money to hire people to look after the house and get the gardens in order so that's not a problem. My uncle was very rich and had a whole bevy of lawyers who look after his holdings for him."
"So once you get everything set to rights what do you plan to do with the estate sell it, live there?" asked Deanne.
"That hasn't been decided yet," Griffen said, "as we've only taken a brief tour of the gardens and the house and talked to Mrs. Monroe about staying on for awhile. Mira and I realize it's going to be a massive project and not just to get the gardens into shape but also the house. While Mrs. Monroe did what she could there was only so much she could do by herself, so she only cleaned the rooms that were being used and the rest were closed up and have been for quite some time."
"I'm surprised your great uncle didn't have at least droids to clean," Deanne said. "Usually an estate like what you described has a whole army of them if they don't have human servants."
"Not my uncle, as he never liked droids, according to Mrs. Monroe, anyway. Neither Mira, or I see a reason to disbelieve her as we both know that some people just don't like droids for one reason or another," Griffen revealed. "He was apparently very paranoid, especially in the last few years of his life. He thought they were spying on him and reporting to someone about his activities. It's one of the reasons he let most of the servants go at least the ones that weren't fired or quit for various reasons."
"I know that paranoia can take control of a lot of older people, especially if they live alone with no family, no servants, other than one old housekeeper in your uncles case," Deanne said.
"Yeah, I know right now, Mira and I are trying to go through the various papers in my great uncle's study, which is going to take awhile, because there's quite a lot of it," Griffen said. "However, that's not your problem but mine and Mira's. Just that we're going to have a lot of work to do before the estate can be sold if that's what we decide to do."
"Sounds like most of the rooms need a good cleaning if they've been closed up for a long time," said Deanne.
"The whole house needs a good cleaning really," Griffen agreed.
"I'm looking forward to our trip tomorrow," Deanne told him. "To meeting your sister Mira."
"She certainly looking forward to meeting you!" Griffen told her being absolutely honest with her, as Mira really couldn't wait to meet Deanne. "I would be prepared to be questioned about everything, your family, your finances, whether you have any health issues, as she'll want your whole medical history."
"She sounds like one of my good friends," Deanne snorted. "Samantha questioned a boy who asked her for a date, about his family, his finances, his medical history before she would agree to go out on the date with him. By the time she was done questioning him, the boy was no longer interested in dating her as she had terrified him. Samantha would have made a great interrogator for the FBI."
"I hope my sister doesn't scare you off like your friend Samantha scared that boy who asked her for a date," Griffen chuckled sounding very amused. There was a twinkle in his dark gray eyes.
"Not likely," Deanne snorted also in amusement. "Your sister doesn't scare me, Griffen. My family can be just as intense and protective occasionally, though they don't usually question one of their children's boyfriends are girlfriends."
Like never! Deanne added in her thoughts, but didn't say out loud.
"I can take your sister's questioning no problem," Deanne added.
"Well, good, we'll have to see if you can live up to your promise because my sister can be quite brash and forceful when protecting family," said Griffen.
"I'm not worried," Deanne told him with a confident smile. "So is your sister going to meet us there or is she going to be traveling with us?"
"She'll meet us there, as we'll be driving, even though I know that takes longer, but it's only a couple of hours even by car so there's no point of wasting money on a shuttle ticket," Griffen said.
"So the two of us will be going together, then?" Deanne asked, and Griffen nodded.
"It's kind of hard to find, especially the first time. It's set back from the road by quite a lot and you don't even see the gate that leads to the estate from there. You have to take a little side road for a couple of miles until you get to the estate's gate," Griffen said.
"I'm assuming that the camera at the gate automatically recognizes yours or your sister's cars now," Deanne said.
"Now it does, so we don't have to use the intercom that's on the side of the gate, which was a bit rusted and also filthy from disuse the first time we came. It was clear my uncle hadn't had visitors in a long time if the intercom and the gate itself was anything to go by," Griffen explained.
"I would think the gate at least would've been in decent shape as I'm sure they had groceries delivered if nothing else," Deanne said.
"It still worked and everything. It was just covered in rust in certain portions of it like the hinges. It was clear it hadn't been maintained for a long time," Griffen said. "It worked well enough as it was, but that's one chore that Mira and I need to hire someone to take care of and that's to get rid of the rust that's on the gate. That rust has not yet affected the operating mechanism, but it needs to be inspected and cleaned."
"It sounds like quite a project," Deanne said. "It'll probably take you at least a year to get everything done and probably more than that. I know it takes awhile to clean out old papers that tend to accumulate, even if most paperwork is on computer nowadays."
"True, most paperwork isn't still on actual paper and usually you have a computer copy as well as a paper copy as backup depending on what it is," Griffen agreed. "If it's important legal document, you is usually have both. Computers can fail after all before you save and if it's something like a legal will it's good to have a back up copy just in case."
"You also can't hack a paper copy, and a lot of people can do that nowadays," Deanne suggested and Griffen nodded. "I can see the benefit of having both in certain situations, especially when it comes to someone's legal will. You wouldn't want some relative changing your will or hiring someone to do it, just because they've been left out for whatever reason."
"No, you're right," Griffen winced. "You're right, there are some situations, particularly legal ones, where it's good to have a backup copy just in case.
The two continued to walk along the beach for a few minutes, watching as the sun set and paint the sky in brilliant oranges, reds, blues and purples before heading back to Griffen's car since the wind was starting to pick up and it was becoming chillier by the second since the sun had gone down.
~~~Deanne and Griffen~~~