Free Dream House by Catherine Armsden Page A

end of a long, difficult sentence whose words had conveyed more urgency and pain to Gina the more she’d aged. In the past few months, it seemed to have shaken the very foundation of her courage and contentment. She felt unmoored—like a tent with one of its stakes pulled out of the ground, flapping and folding in the wind.
    They rode in a humming silence punctuated by the thumping of the bridge’s expansion joints and Stella’s panting. When they arrived at his office, Paul pulled over, kissed Gina on the cheek, and got out of the car.
    Gina climbed into the driver’s seat and just as she pulled away from the curb, her phone rang. It was Cassie.
    â€œCass,” she said when she answered, “I’m driving, can I . . .”
    â€œI’m sorry!” Cassie interrupted “But you’ve gotta hear this. Sid just called and left a message that he bought the house. Our house. He wants to discuss his plans for it.”
    â€œ Our house?” Gina ran a yellow light and noticed a cop parked at the intersection.
    â€œCassie, it’s illegal to talk on my cell while driving. Wait—holdon.” She laid her phone on the seat next to her and pressed “speaker.”
    â€œIt’s so awful! Just spiteful!” Cassie’s agitation filled the car, making it hard for Gina to breathe.
    â€œYou know, Sid’s bought and sold, like, three houses in Whit’s Point in the last ten years. He’s just buying ours to flip it, too,” Gina said, thinking this might somehow reassure Cassie.
    â€œOh, how horrible! What will he do to it? I just can’t talk to him.”
    â€œThen I guess I’ll have to.”
    â€œNo!” Cassie practically shouted. “You can’t. He wants something from us—besides the house, I mean. He thinks we have something, and he’d probably do anything to get it.”
    Gina’s mind was not on her driving; she needed to say goodbye. “Let me think about it, okay? Email me his number. You and I will talk.”
    They hung up. Gina’s head felt foamy with confusion. As usual, she’d been so intent on calming down Cassie that she couldn’t register how she felt about Sid’s buying the house. Cassie’s distrust of their cousin was over-the-top, she knew, but Gina wasn’t eager to talk to him, either. She’d associated him with inexorable family hostility for so long that she imagined any contact with him could suck her into a vortex of pain. She was sure he felt the same way about her and Cassie—he’d long ago distanced himself from them. He hadn’t even shown up at her parents’ funeral.
    But what could she really know about Sid? She’d been Esther’s age when she last saw him. Why was he coming back into their lives now?

 
    Â 
    Â 
    Â 
    A book is a home for a story
    A rose is a house for a smell
    My head is a house for a secret
    A secret I never shall tell!
    Mary Ann Hoberman, A House Is a House For Me

    Just when it seemed her mother’s birthday was doomed, Ginny’s father was struck with the idea of a family trip to the Museum of Fine Arts. Eleanor had frowned at his other ideas of how to spend the day: lunch at Howard Johnson’s or a drive to the mountains.
    â€œOkay, the museum—that’s good,” she had said, and Ginny, her father, and maybe even the timbers of the house, having been in suspense all morning, sighed with relief.
    The Gilberts wound out Pickering Road, mounded on both sides with colorful leaves.
    As they approached Lily House, Eleanor said, “Slow down, Ron. Look! They finished the roof job. The color of those new roof shingles is all wrong.”
    Ginny turned to look. Everyone in the car expected Eleanor to remark about something or other every time she drove by Lily House. Wasn’t the field behind it getting high or the barn needing somepaint? From her mother’s vigilance Ginny gleaned that Lily