They stop in Wickford to lunch and rest the horses. The breeze from Block Island Sound carries the salty smell of ocean, the sigh of surf. The barn out back smells of hay and horses. The house, slightly musty from the slow season, now starts awake at the slap of the screen door. The large windows, misted with salt, are hoisted open to sand on the sills.
Curtains blow inward.
Linens are shaken out, billowing over the old metal beds. Dust is wiped from the battleship-gray cottage furniture, which will come to hold a century's worth of family memories. Rockers are set out and hammocks hung on the wraparound porch. Like Eleanor Andrews, her youngest son lives for this place. He will inherit the property and will, in turn, pass that fascination and ownership to his children, John and Jean Andrews.