All of It by Kim Holden Page A

Won’t you come inside?”
    “I’d love to. Your home is beautiful, Sunny.”
    “Thank you.” Sunny steps aside and gestures for us to enter. She falls in step behind Dimitri squeezing his shoulders. She’s trying to whisper, but her excitement makes it impossible, “She’s so pretty, D. You two look precious together.”
    I step inside the back door and the loveliest feeling sweeps over me. Not only is the air filled with the aroma of freshly baked chocolate cookies, it’s also filled with love. It feels like my parents’ home. I’ve always thought that you can get a pretty good read on a person by visiting their family home. The house itself tells a story. Houses can be happy, sad, calm, angry, peaceful, or cold. This home is filled with love.
    “Can I get you something to drink, Veronica?” Sunny offers.
    “No, thank you. I’m okay right now; we’ve just come from dinner.”
    Sunny looks at me expectantly. “How was it? Did you love it?”
    “Love it? It was perfect, like a fairy tale.”
    Sunny looks to Dimitri, her eyebrows pinched together. “Were the candles too much?”
    Dimitri laughs. “I don’t know how he got away with it without burning the place down. You should’ve seen it.”
    Sunny pulls her cell phone out of her back pocket, presses a button and holds the screen up for us to look. The phone displays a photo of the room we ate dinner in. “Oh, I saw it. You didn’t think Pedro actually pulled it all off by himself, did you? Do you know how hard it is to round up 200 candles and ten dozen pink lilies in two hours?”
    Dimitri hugs Sunny. “Thanks Mom.”
    She kisses him on the cheek and ruffles his hair. “Clearly it was all worth it.” Sunny turns toward me and takes my hand in hers. “My D. is a very particular young man. He knows what he wants and he’s very driven, much like his father was. He’s extremely selective about the company he keeps. I knew that you must be very special for him to have become so taken with you in such a short time. And after getting to meet you, I can see that you are. Please know that you are welcome in our home anytime you like, and I look forward to seeing you often.” She smiles warmly and her blue eyes glitter.
    “Thank you so much, Sunny.”
    “Well, I’d better get to bed now. I need to play piano at church tomorrow morning. Sebastian’s watching a movie in the theater. Good night you two,” she says. And then, to Dimitri, “I love you, D.”
    “I love you, too, Mom.”
    “Make sure he shows you the gallery, Veronica,” Sunny says over her shoulder as she disappears into the adjoining room.
    “Mom,” Dimitri groans, his voice tinged with embarrassment as he shakes his head.
    She reappears around the corner for a split second, winks and disappears.
    “She’s great,” I say.
    “She is. Sebastian and I have been blessed this time.” He’s still looking in the direction Sunny has disappeared with a smile on his face.
    “This time?” What an odd thing to say, I think.
    He dismisses it airily. “Nevermind,” he says, and turns to face me. “What would you like to do?”
    “How about you show me around? Judging by the size of this place that may take the rest of the night and some of the morning. Apparently there’s a gallery I’m supposed to see, too.”
    He takes my hand and leads me through the massive kitchen and dining room to a room near the front of the house. “This is the music room.”
    He turns on the lights to reveal a large room with very high ceilings. Everything in the room is bright white—the walls, the carpet, the drapes, the furniture; the only exception is the shiny, black grand piano sitting at the far end of the room. It’s striking. He stands quietly just inside the room watching me as I look around. “You can come in, Ronnie.”
    “I don’t want to get the carpet dirty,” I say, looking down at my shoes.
    He laughs. “We do
live
here. It’s not just to look at. Take your shoes off if it makes