The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine Page A

two cracked concrete squares of faded gray, led up to the sunporch, several missing louvers of its jalousie windows gaping darkly.
    Miranda, for her part, saw a tangle of dark green foliage and pale pink sea roses peeking from the side of the house. The roses were so small and jumbled, their flowers one petal deep, the yellow heart so exposed. Above them, a squirrel rattled a branch. Miranda looked up and watched the squirrel, a fat gray being balanced on delicate little toes. The white clouds of late summer flew by overhead, the sky as deep a blue as a daytime sky could be. She could smell the briny sea. On the chafed lawn, there was a patch of rich green moss in the shade from the house. Miranda took off her shoes and stood on the soft, cool moss. She touched the trunk of the old tree beside her, her fingers stroking the ridges of iron gray bark.
    "We will be happy here," Betty said.
    Miranda smiled at her mother. "We already are."
    Miranda and Betty were still exclaiming at the potential of the peeling hut, Annie's heart was still sinking in silent dismay, when there was a sudden commotion at the front door, which flung itself open to reveal a bald, pink-faced man dressed in bright golf clothes and holding a broom.
    Cousin Lou handed the broom to Annie, apologized about the missing windowpanes, promised workmen and replacements. He then invited them to dinner that night. "Don't disappoint me." He shook his head, his pink jowls shuddering with alarm. "Don't."
    He pointed to the mailbox.
    "I ordered it just for you, but look how the idiots painted your name!"
    The mailbox was a fat, new, shiny affair, and on both sides, in bold black letters, it said: the wisemen .
    They did not go to dinner that night, despite the imploring swing of Cousin Lou's jowls. They waited for the moving van, then began to unpack the boxes. Annie and Miranda had the two bedrooms on the ground floor, their mother the large attic room upstairs.
    "My childhood furniture," Annie said, sitting on the mahogany sleigh bed Betty had gotten her at an auction when she was twelve. "It's much nicer than my own furniture." Still, over the years, Annie had acquired one or two pieces she was fond of. Would the visiting French professor and his wife leave cigarette burns on the arms of her chairs? Already, she could not wait to get back to her apartment.
    Miranda, in contrast, was quite giddy. "I feel like we're in a dollhouse," she said. "And we're the dolls."
    Annie shuddered.
    "It's an adventure," Miranda said.
    "An adventure in claustrophobia."
    "You'll see."
    Miranda often said You'll see . Annie found it oddly comforting, as if Miranda knew what was coming, knew that everything would be all right, knew how to make it be all right.
    "Do you think Mom seems a little shell-shocked?" Annie asked.
    "We're our own dolls," Miranda said, as if she had not heard Annie. "In our own dollhouse."
    Upstairs, Betty was staring out the attic window. She could hear Miranda and Annie talking downstairs. The sound was soft and indistinct, but familiar, like a memory. So much seemed like a memory these days. This blue sky with its banks of white clouds was a memory. And this town: leaning against an old black Buick at the station, waiting for Joseph's train, the girls chattering just as they were doing now, that same sky arched high above them; the train chugging into sight, giving its great slow sigh as it braked. Then, out of its door stepped another memory: her husband. Her husband, Joseph.
    "Can you see the water?" Annie asked, clumping up the stairs.
    "It's beautiful."
    "Oh, look, a sailboat."
    "This is my widow's walk," Betty said.
    It would be worth everything, Annie thought, if her mother could be happy here. Betty's hair, a very pretty auburn created at great expense by an Italian colorist at Frederic Fekkai, was surrounded by a nimbus of light. Annie put her arms around her and rested her cheek on the auburn head. Outside, in the distance, gulls wheeled in the blue sky.