Dream House Read Online Free Page A

different.”
    Gina and Cassie drove past the stone wall built by the Historical Society to buffer Lily House from the road. At the end of it, a modest sign hung from a post.
    Lily House
    Home of Sidney Banton
    Built 1785
    Open to the Public
    (By appointment only)
    In her mind, Gina saw her mother shake her head at the sign with disapproval.
    Cassie sighed as she pulled into Lily House’s driveway. Though it was more than a hundred years older than the rental, it was evident that the generous-sized Georgian colonial, with its bright yellow clapboards, black shutters, and welcoming wide porch, had been much better cared for.
    As the sisters climbed the porch steps, Cassie asked, “When was the last time you were here?”
    Gina tried to answer but her breath caught in her throat.
    â€œCassie! Gina!” Annie beamed when she opened the door. “Lester? They’ve come!”
    Annie wrapped an arm around Cassie and then Gina, reeling each of them in for a hug. Gina felt small and limp next to her. At five-foot-nine, Annie was eleven inches taller than Gina’s mother, and Gina always imagined those inches balanced the power in their friendship. When Annie pulled back from them, she wiped tears from her eyes. “Oh, you girls,” she said.
    Lester appeared at the end of the hall with a broad smile. “Well, well! Cassie and Ginny! How wonderful!” He made his way toward them on one metal crutch, his companion since childhood polio.
    â€œ Gina ,” Annie corrected Lester. “She hasn’t been Ginny in years.”
    Cassie grabbed Gina’s wrist and squeezed. “Wow, it’s exactly as I remember it!” she exclaimed, stepping into the living room ahead of Annie and Lester.
    The darkness that had enveloped Gina all week suddenly deepened. The last time she’d been in Lily House was thirty-five years ago, the day her Aunt Fran committed suicide here. That the arrangement of furnishings had been frozen in time by the Historical Society seemed macabre. She tried to maintain the slight blur from the martini to keep her mind skittering along the surface of things.
    But Cassie’s big eyes widened. “Wow!” she exclaimed. “I think I remember every single thing in here. The Shaker chairs . . . the gorgeous tea set? It was Martha Washington’s.” She ran a finger along the belly of the teapot. “And the lolling chair that George Washington sat in when he came here,” she said, her hand brushing the velvet seat. “We never got to sit in it because it was always ‘Fran’s chair.’”
    â€œWelcome to your family museum!” Lester said. “We’d love to entertain you here in the living room but it’s off-limits, of course—no sitting allowed.”
    They followed him into what Gina remembered her mother calling the “piano room,” though now it was clear to her that it had been built as a library. “This is Annie’s and my living room.”
    â€œSo which rooms can you and Lester actually use?” Gina asked.
    Lester explained they used the piano room, the large kitchen, and as their dining room, the sunroom. They slept in the “summer ell,” an addition off the kitchen that originally had been built for summer guests but had since been winterized.
    â€œHow about a glass of wine?” Annie offered. Gina was about to say, no, thank you, but Cassie said, “We’d kill for a glass of wine!”
    Cassie winked at Gina, and Gina resigned herself to whatever Cassie had in mind. At least she’d always liked Annie and Lester. When she was young, she’d recognized them as unusual: a mother with a profession playing violin in the Maine Symphony, a father who worked as a high school guidance counselor. Both tall, they filleda room, and in their frequent visits to her family’s house, Gina felt their physical presence like old, comfortable furniture as much as family