Wikipedia concisely describes a palimpsest as "a manuscript page from a scroll or book from which the text has been scraped off and which can be used again." An old home is like that--each room a chapter, erased when one family moves out, then scraped clean, then written on again when a new family moves in.
The husband bought the house ten years ago. It was a wreck and he got the place cheap. Cheap is relative, of course. He put on a new roof and a new foundation. He redid the plumbing and wiring. That was just to make it livable.
But there are treasures here. The original kitchen tiles. The fireplace. The archways. The tiny hallway connecting two upstairs rooms like a secret passage. Yesterday Pascal Jim spotted the sleeping porch with a view of the mountains. Tomorrow I'll show you the stained glass.
Tucked away in a dark corner, years peel away in layers to reveal an early chapter of the kitchen's palimpsest: a pattern of the linen that once graced the walls.
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