Chapter 3
"Once I left I wasn't sure where to go. I ended up deciding to go to
the big city of New York. I had heard that it was so big, and that there
was so many people there that you couldn't tell one face from another, so I
thought that was the best place for me. I sight seed, and took some
classes at the university, and pretty soon 20 years had passed from the time I
left Tree Gap and I knew it was time to return. Of course I didn't come
back as Winnie Foster, but as Martha DuPree. The child of Winnie's and
her husband William. I had been writing to my parents over the years, and
I had written about a marriage, and baby girl being born. It hurt too
much to think of never seeing my family again, so that's why I had made up this
elaborate story, to give me an excuse to come back.
"I returned and informed them of my "mother's" death, my father
having died some years earlier. They treated me exactly the same, except
maybe a little more fragile than before. I reassured them that my mother
had gone peacefully, and had led a good life. I stayed with them for 3
years. Within those three years I got to know my parents again, and it
was just like old times. My parents had gotten quite old by then and then
one day my mother died, of old age. A few months later my father also
passed away, he was even older then my mother, so the doctors concluded
he too died of old age, but I know he really died of a broken heart.
"They had left the estate to me, their granddaughter. A
month after my father's passing I told the housemaid, Anne, that I would be
leaving for Europe, in hopes of finding a husband. I told her to take
care of the estate, and in return she could live there freely, just as long as
she didn't change anything, I wanted to preserve it. Anne and I had grown
up together. She was not that much older then me when she had come to
work here. She was my friend. I watched her age and die, as well as
her daughter who at her mother's death had taken her place. Anne's
great-granddaughter now works for me. I've seen my home change so much
because every 20 years, I came back as the daughter of Winnie's daughter, and
what not. I am now 15 year old Winnie Mae Foster Stone, named after my
great-great-grandmother, and each time I ended up with custody of this estate,
and our spring. See I never truly left Tree Gap, I always came back
someway. I also never gave up on you. I knew you'd one day come
back for me Jesse Tuck.
"Do you think we can climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower now?