![]() ![]() ![]() The sisters’ names were carved on the trunk, as were Benjamin’s and Luke’s, Benjamin’s older brother, who’d drowned in the Maldives when Jimmy Carter was President. But the weeping beech still maintained its central spot-through the peephole of Google, it resembled butter lettuce. Then she’d put a match to them and Lily would shriek. the amateur naturalist, curious and unafraid. A six-hole golf course took up the meadow where Mom had painted her watercolors and Dad had trotted his collection of horse-drawn carriages, where K.K., the oldest sister, the dead sister, liked to roll in the high grass and collect ticks, tracking their transformation into blood-engorged skin tags. On Google Earth the new house resembled three Monopoly hotels jammed together. The ceilings were probably too low, something Lily had always noticed, how dark and claustrophobic it could get inside, with all the panelling and beams. The rich couple bulldozed the house anyway. Eleanor had even thought about burning the house down. ![]() So they sold it to a rich couple who were semi-famous for their wealth-Eleanor would sometimes Google them and scroll through pictures of the man and woman at various parties and galas, e-mailing the choicest of these photos to Lily and Louise, as if she were putting pins into voodoo dolls. But after Mom and Dad died the sisters couldn’t agree on what to do with the old place, what with the hassles of upkeep, and the estate taxes, the property taxes, too. It was from there that they used to emerge in their dresses, led by Benjamin beating on the same small drum he had beaten on since he was eight. The interior of its hoopskirt canopy had acted as the sisters’ sanctum sanctorum. The biggest thing missing was the massive weeping beech. Jasper would pick up his mandolin, and Philip, Lily’s son, would grab Jasper’s guitar, and Louise would sing, and then Lily would sing, and Eleanor would never sing but she might yowl and grab her crotch, and maybe this place would start to feel like the old place. Then they’d shoot Roman candles and bottle rockets, brought by whoever had travelled from, or through, a firework state. The bonfire nowadays was confined to the copper fire pit at Louise’s house, but they’d manage to get the flames up high. ![]() He’d been cremated with his healing crystals still clenched in his hands. And Lewis, the son of Benjamin, the sisters’ cousin, would light the bonfire, once his father’s job. Come night, Jasper, Lily’s grandson, would play guitar. There’d be enough to drink, that was for sure, and maybe something to smoke thanks to the dispensaries in nearby Great Barrington. Louise’s son Charlie would man the grill. Eleanor, pasta salad and lentils with sweet potatoes. Upstairs, the sisters prepared by putting on their dresses, while down in the yard everyone drank Mott’s apple juice and snacked on Ritz crackers squared with Cheddar. ![]()
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