Lumpkin drove to the Peppers’ house again. Tommy heard her yellow Mazda honking from the bottom of the dune. When he opened the door, she waved for him to come down, and he went back in to get his coat since it was starting to snow, and by the time he got down to her Mazda, she was waiting by the open trunk of the car, and she was a little ... prickly.“Unlike some people, I don’t have all the time in the world,” Mrs. Lumpkin said. She pointed. “Take this out of the car and bring it to your father.”Tommy took out the wrapped canvas. He knew what it was.“Tell him I never want to see it again,” she said. “And tell him I’m not paying for it.” Tommy took it back up to the house and slid it into the front hall closet.The snow swirled around the dune.Everyone said they had never seen so much snow fall on the New England coast in November. At first they were gentle snows, covering everything with a deep and soft fleece. And the air was cold enough to keep the snow dry, so the flakes blew easily north along Water Street and down the beaches toward Tommy’s house, where they passed through the field of yellow flags with not even a ripple.But as the month went on, the squalls of snow grew heavier.
