PART THREE Making Waves The sun filtered down through a vertical lattice, and the pattern it was making across the big green baize table immediately put Marianne in mind of the lawn, the lovely lawn, at the old house. A long-ago but potent memory – she could only have been, oh – six or so, maybe even a little bit younger, when they had left that place. She remembered her mother saying to her so sadly how terribly happy she was, and how they all now would be, because the new house, the place they were going to right this very minute (and all the familiar things which Marianne had maybe assumed had just grown out from the ground they stood on – all these bits of furniture, the ornaments and immutable pictures, even the big old clock that forever said ten to seven – they were all piled up in a van outside) – was, you see, so very much better than this old house in just, oh – every single way you can think of. My room smelled different, now that it was empty – and all the others did too; maybe the smells were coming with us (wrapped in corrugated, and stacked in the van?).
