The water is bucketing down so hard that she scarcely notices the grader half-blocking the winding driveway. Fixing the hillocky, potholed road at last? She opens her front door to the smell of damp carpet, of damp wood, damp Sheetrock, mould. In the basement room is a shallow shining lake, and all of the crates and trunks and boxes sitting in it are cubist islands. “I told you that I should check on the house while you were gone,” Cynthia howls. “Why do you have to be so damned stubborn and independent? You make more trouble for everyone in the long run, you know that? You always think you know more than everyone else, but you don’t.” Justin says, “Mother,” but he too looks as shocked as Sidonie feels. “Do you ever stop and think,” Cynthia shouts, “that other people are intelligent, too? That they might know as much as you? More than you, about some things?” It is astonishing; she hasn’t heard an outburst like this from Cynthia in years, not since she was an adolescent.
