Viette #3: The Doherty House

"I'm sure Delia has been looking forward to seeing you again," Grandpa Peter was saying consolingly, his leathery hands gripping the steering wheel as he guided his once-shiny black car along the gravel drive. The Dohertys' huge manor house crouched at the end of a mile-long driveway, tucked in a thin artificial forest that had been planted a generation back.

"Maybe. I'm just not sure it's the best idea to stay with her this whole week. She might even kick me out. It's been three years since she's had to deal with me."

"Nonsense. You're her daughter," Peter insisted. But his tired gray eyes didn't meet Viette's, and she slid deep down in her seat defiantly, trying not to take in too many details of her surroundings. The sheer bleakness of the landscape outside would be enough to drive her to saying things she didn't actually mean. At least her father wasn't in the car to witness her attitude; he was riding behind them, in a taxi laden with all their haphazard luggage from Greece.

Suddenly, Grandpa Peter's car broke through the shadows cast by the too-perfect trees, and Viette couldn't restrain her eyes from glancing out the foggy windshield at the broad, imposing facade of the Doherty house. With its gray stone front and the columns lining the gate, it looked more stereotypically English than Viette could bear, and she could hardly resist rolling her eyes. They had even added some crawling ivy, carefully trimmed to appear as natural as possible, since her last miserable visit. Oh, how perfect.

As the car pulled around the drive, which wound in a half-circle around a pretentious little fountain, Viette hastily snatched up her woven hat and yanked it over her unruly curls. She glanced down at her rumpled dress, the blue one she'd bought at a market in Kavala. It didn't look especially Greek, but she knew it didn't match the maroon cap she'd been wearing all day, and that would be enough to earn a few disdainful looks by the company she was likely to meet inside the Doherty house. Oh, well, Viette thought resignedly. I'm certainly not going to change for them. No need to mention that she had switched out her sandals for scuffed, awkward heels before leaving the airfield in London.

Grandpa Peter parked the car in front of the daunting set of heavy stone stairs which were meant to invite guests inside. Before opening his door, though, he reached over and patted his granddaughter's cheek, as if she were still a small child and not nearly an adult. "Don't worry yourself over all this, Vivienne," he said in the softest possible way his naturally rasping voice would allow. "There are enough things in this world to worry about than acceptance from your own family."

Viette grinned, a slight, rosy blush coloring her cheeks. "Thanks, Grandpa. I'll do my best to remember that as I'm being thrown to the dogs by you two." She motioned out the window, where Henry had come out of his taxi and was already carrying one of Viette's bags to the steps. She sighed. "I guess there's no other choice, is there?"

"No, I don't believe there is," Grandpa Peter said distantly, gazing out the windshield. Holding back another sigh, Viette wondered again how long she would have to wait before anyone asked her opinion in the whole matter -- how she felt about her aunt's as yet-unexplained death, the uprooting from Greece, the week spent in the company of her mother.

Viette adjusted the sleeves on her sweater and, taking a deep breath, she opened her door and was all too-aware of the crunching sound her silly heels made as they met the gravel of the 'round-the-fountain driveway in front of the Doherty house.