Mother recounting ARLYNE'S misdeeds

As far back as Arlyne's memory goes, every Friday night the Weiss family went to Grandma's house. It was a sacred obligation, one they could not skip under any circumstances. As a child, Arlyne looked forward to those outings with innocent enthusiasm, taking them for granted and not understanding them. By 1944, when she was eleven years old, an age when the growing knowledge of the mysteries behind ordinary events pricked her curiosity, those visits took on a new importance. At three o'clock sharp, as soon as they came home from school, Arlyne and her little sister, Barbara, would bathe and change, putting on the dress the maid had left on the bed. They then presented themselves to their mother, who, as was customary at that hour, was seated on a stool before the dressing table. Billie Weiss assessed her daughters with a critical eye and then placed the little girl before her. As she braided her long honey-colored hair, the little girl's head bobbed docilely up and down. But that idyl