over as if we were lining up for parade inspection. He
straightened Cary's tie and brushed down May's skirt
after he spotted a tiny crease.
"I can have her take it off and iron it, Jacob,"
Mommy offered.
"It's all right," he said. "We'll be late. Let's get
started."
The three of us got into the backseat, Cary
sitting on one end and me on the other with May
between us. He gazed out the window and didn't look
at me once during the ride over to Grandma Olivia
and Grandpa Samuel's.
"What a pretty spring day," Mommy said as we
headed down Route 6. Grandma Olivia's house was
midway between Provincetown and North Truro.
From the outside, my grandparents' house looked far
from cold and impersonal. It was a large two-story,
clapboard covered home with a wide-planked
whitewashed front door. Over the door was a fanshaped window of colored glass and, though I'm sure it was meant to be decorative, Cary and I always joked about it looking like a big gloomy frown
warning visitors to stay away.
Grandma Olivia was very proud of her home,
claiming it was prestigious because of its historic past. "The original portion of this house was built
around 1780," she declared to every new visitor. She
usually added, "That was when the prosperous
families began to build some of the more fashionable
buildings in colonial America. Today," she would
continue in that sharp, critical tone of voice of hers,
"wealthy people sacrifice classic fashion for
ostentation."
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