For generations, the gallery had been lined with grim, stern-faced portraits of ancestors who looked down upon visitors with aristocratic disdain and cold suspicion.

With Claire and Poppy's help, we took down the dusty oil paintings of tyrannical patriarchs and replaced them with vibrant, modern artwork, photographs of foundation beneficiaries, candid family portraits of our children playing on the lawn, and a magnificent central painting capturing Daniel and me standing together beneath the open wrought-iron gates of Raven Hill, bathed in golden sunlight.

As we stepped back to admire the newly transformed gallery, Eleanor Vance—who had become a permanent, beloved fixture in the household—walked slowly down the hall, leaning on her carved cane.

She stopped in front of the new central portrait, studying it with quiet, perceptive eyes.

"Your grandfather would have hated this," Eleanor remarked softly, a faint, knowing smile touching her lips.

"Why's that?" Daniel asked, stepping up beside her with an arm around my waist.

"Because it has too much life in it," she replied, turning to look up at him with profound warmth. "He spent his whole life building a museum of ghosts. You two turned it into a home."