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IT WAS SUNNY, YET THE BRISKNESS OF FALL WAS PRESENT ON FRANCES OLSON'S FIRST DAY AT WELTON ACADEMY. Her father, sitting beside her with a stern gaze — one she hardly saw unless he was truly focused, such as the circumstances they found themselves in now. She allowed herself to peer over at him from the very corners of her eyes, scoping up and down over his hard set features while he kept his icy stare trained on the ceremony being held before them.
Frances wondered what he could be thinking at this very second. Watching silently as Welton's creed was presented, each of them, one after the other being brought forward by a set of four, tall boys carrying each word further into the chapel.
Tradition. Honor. Discipline. Excellence. The pennants seemed nearly haunting to the young girl as she watched them near the podium where the school's headmaster stood, and what was even more haunting was the deep set scowl that lingered across the older man's features. How had her father survived it, she wondered. How was he surviving it now, all these years later after his life had undergone so much change? He was different then, of course. Cold, unfeeling, logical, just as his parents had always wanted. That was before Marjorie. Before Frances, herself.
Now, they lived in afters. After Marjorie. After New York. And soon, she thought, after Frances.
They had arrived in Vermont a month before Frances' first day at the academy, her father's classically black Rolls Royce coming to a sudden halt outside her grandparent's obnoxiously large home that nestled perfectly in the center of their sprawling acreage. Both Frances and her father had leaned forward, squinting up at the manor with identically icy stares, as if the home itself would swallow them whole. Edward had let out a sigh, settling back in the driver's seat for a moment before stepping out of the vehicle.
