See sample answer below.

Annotation: “Nothing worthwhile had arrived in Argentina since 1939” (38).
Question: Why does the author specify the place and relative time of the story if so many of the other details are left mysterious?
Conclusion: This detail is meant to add clarity to the ambiguous details related to the intruders. It is likely they have to deal with a political event that took place in Argentina around this 1939.

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Close Read Pg 38
Annotate: “I think women knit when they discover that it’s a fat excuse to do nothing at all.” “always knitted necessities, sweaters for winter, socks for me, handy morning robes and bedjackets for herself.” “uselessly asking if they had anything new in French literature. Nothing worthwhile had arrived in Argentina since 1939.”
Question: They set the doomed tone for the story. The concept of uselessness foreshadows the ultimate futility of the siblings keeping the house clean, because it will be taken from them, and the concept of necessity is important because it foreshadows the hard decisions they will soon have to make out of necessity.
Conclude: The characters’ lives are driven by necessity, but they still harbor some ‘useless’ habits.

Close Read Pg 40
Annotate: “You’re sure?” “I nodded.” “I liked that vest.”
Question: By using shorter sentences, the reader can move through the text faster, making the scene seem faster and more suspenseful.
Conclude: The short sentences make it seem like the characters quickly understanding what is happening, implying that they have been awaiting it for some time.

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Annotation: “We ended up thinking, at times, that that was what had kept us from marrying. Irene turned down two suitors for no particular reason, and Maria Esther went and died on me before we could manage to get engaged. We were easing into our forties with the unvoiced concept that the quiet, simple marriage of sister and brother was the indispensable end to a line established in this house by our grandparents” (38).
Question: Why would the author liken the siblings to an old married couple?
Conclusion: The author likens the siblings to an old married couple not because they have incestuous desires for each other, but because they care about each other, and are comfortable in each other’s company, on a similar level to an old married couple.