Absently noticing that the wet March snow is already starting to stick, she turns the windshield wipers a notch faster. According to AccuWeather, the temperature will have plummeted into the twenties by dusk, with well over a foot of new snow in the forecast before the thermometer boomerangs up into the sixties by midweek. The storm started earlier than predicted, though. The meteorologists had said it would begin snowing late this afternoon, but already a coating of white dusts the rooftops, bare branches, and grass on meticulously landscaped properties. If it weren’t for the unobtrusive wooden signpost and awnings that shade the tall windows and stretch along the front walk, the three-story white house in the middle of the block would look like any other. But it isn’t like them at all. People live in those other homes. Some of the aging residents have been there since Jen was growing up on a nearby block lined with equally old, albeit far smaller and less dignified houses set much closer together than they are here.
