“Like Great-grandmother Jeffers,” he said to himself. His papa had asked Greatgrandmother to come with them to live. Thomas recalled how she’d been leaning on her bright blue gate at the time. No longer was there a fence around Great-grandmother Jeffers’ house. Its blue pickets had long since fallen and rotted back into the ground. But the gate continued to stand, and Thomas, since the age of ten, had painted it bright blue every spring.