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Show CHAPTER THIRTEEN It was not until she actually saw Aunt Peggy's house-not until they turned the corner onto the street where she lived-that the numb after-feeling of the accident began to give way. Began to dissipate. For the small two bedroom house held many memories from her childhood, it was one of her few real links to her past. And as such, it always gave her an almost serene, inner calmness whenever she first saw it. It was a tract house, all the houses on the block were, with their small front lawns and tiny backyards. In the frontroom windows blinked the red-and-blue-and-yellow strings of Christmas tree lights, a couple of the houses had lights on the eves. But here, there were no lawn displays-no cardboard reindeer or Santa Clauses or Nativity scenes -as there was in Westchester. Here the lawns were thin and brown-the brownish tinge of winter-some were even worn in patches where the bare earth showed through. The naked earth itself, which was nowhere visible in Westchester. Along the curbs were parked several older cars, a '48 Chevy with the front elevated on blocks-was that here last time? She thought she recognized it. And there were, as there always was during the holidays, the dead crinkled leaves, in bunches along the gutters, on the lawns, a few still clinging to the small maples in the front yards. The maples had been planted by the contractor some fifteen years before, when the houses had been built, they had not done particularly well. None of them had reached as high as the roof line along the block, some lawns were bare of them, the dead trees having been removed. |