Read A Face in Every Window for Free Online Page B

us out at the farmhouse the next day when Mam went there to meet the owner and take the scheduled tour. That's when I found out that Dr. Mike, most conveniently, lived in Washington Crossing, just minutes from New Hope.
    Larry Seeley offered to drive us up there for the house tour. I was surprised when Mam agreed to go with him, but then he had a large van, almost a bus, that seated eleven people. It was an old wreck of a thing, painted a dull flat brown, with a rag coming out of the gas tank, a major rust problem across the front just below the windshield, and several bumper stickers on the rear doors and windows asking us to save the environment, whales, earth, rain forests; ride a bike to work; love the color green; and be at peace. Mam, Pap, Larry, Tim, Bobbi Polanski, a couple of friends of Grandma Mary's, and I all rode in the van, black smoke puffing out the back, obscuring all the bumper stickers and Aunt Colleen, who followed behind in her Mercedes.
    When Mam had called Aunt Colleen to tell her that she had won the contest, Aunt Colleen said nothing good would come of a house gotten by such means and Mam had better watch out. "Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is," she said. "I don't have a good feeling about this. No, not at all." Then she asked when she could see the house and Mam told her we were heading out there the next morning, so there she was, following the van in her Mercedes.
    The greatest part of winning the house was seeing the change in Mam. She had become a new person. Overnight she had grown more confident. She stood tall, proud, her feet barely touching the ground. She had filled out her clothes since her illness, and the warm sunshine had given her good color in her cheeks. Her eyes, flashing first here, then there, smiling for the camera, smiling at her neighbors, held a light, a sparkle in them I'd never seen before. Mam had become this beautiful, gracious stranger.
    We drove through the main street of New Hope, past the playhouse, the boutiques, and the art galleries, past the pricy restaurants and the bed-and-breakfast inns—and it was as if we'd entered another country, so different was it from our charmless street with its pawnshop and Laundromat, the car wash, the Chinese take-out, and McDonald's. What were we doing here?
    More reporters were waiting for us when we rolled up the steep, tree-lined drive of our new home. Pap bounced in his seat and his voice croaked with delight. He poked his arm out the one window that was stuck halfway between up and down and waved to the people on the lawn.
    The cameras flashed while Mrs. Levi, the cheery-looking woman who had placed the ad and chosen the winning essay, introduced herself to us. The reporters asked her why she chose Mam's essay over the more than 3,075 entries, and she said she liked the line Mam had used from Harpo Marx because it had always held a special meaning for her as well. She said, "Mrs. O'Brien wrote that she wanted a house filled with love, and when she came home from work each day she wanted to see 'a face in every window' smiling out at her." Then Mrs. Levi smiled openmouthed at Mam and grabbed both of Mam's hands and squeezed them. "I've had good times with my family here. I know you will, too. I knew when I read about you wanting a face in every window we were kindred souls." Mrs. Levi pumped Mam's hands and Mam nodded, tears welling in her eyes.
    I thought it was a strange thing for Mam to have said, considering there were just the three of us, but it worked, and I liked the part about the house filled with love. It made me think of the old days with Grandma Mary.
    We walked the grounds first and discovered that a cabin came with the property, along with a two-car garage that would hold all of Pap's junk, and then some, and that had a basketball hoop attached above the garage doors.
    The cabin stood at the bottom of the sloping lawn, about twenty feet into the woods. The owner said it had been built in