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• • • • • • •

I’M STARVED FOR HUMAN attention and Wesley’s the opposite of a warm friend, so I call my mother. When she doesn’t answer, I find Ruth’s phone number on Violet’s calendar, which still clings to the fridge in the cabin. The box for April twenty-eighth is scrawled with unsteady writing that unintentionally carries into the twenty-ninth: Dr. Porter 1:45.

I wonder if anyone’s canceled Violet’s appointment with Dr. Porter. It’s unnerving to think about her standing here marking the calendar with April plans that will never come to fruition.

“Hi, this is Maybell,” I practice while the phone’s still ringing. “I’m calling to check in!” I don’t know why I’d check in with the home health aide of my dead aunt, or if she’d care, but it’s too late now.

She doesn’t pick up. I’m both relieved and disappointed.

I poke around drawers and cabinets in the cabin. Fold my laundry. Tweak the arrangement of hoard baubles on a shelf in my room. It was ludicrous of Wesley to think we should throw out the snow globes that lost their water—they look like magic crystal balls now.

I pick up an old note I brought with me when I moved here: it’s from Violet, one of her rare responses to my holiday cards. I’m so happy to hear from you! I hope you enjoy your holidays and are doing well. Love, Violet. This note proves I wasn’t a total letdown. She still loved me. Or maybe she was just saying that . . . maybe she was just being nice . . . except she left me the house, so she probably did love me . . . except she left it to Wesley, too . . .

I’m still carrying the note around, lost in my daydreams, when Wesley’s voice blooms unexpectedly over my shoulder and I scream. “Aghhh!”

He jolts back. “Jesus.”

“Stop sneaking up on me! For the love of god!”

“I’m not! I’ve been standing here for like five minutes. How did you not hear the microwave beeping?”

I’m in the kitchen, evidently. Wesley’s eating leftover DiGiorno, shoveling it into his mouth while it’s still steaming.

“Oh.”

He jerks his head at my note. “All I was saying was that I wrote that.”

“You what?” I flip the note over, as if there might be a second one on the back.

“I wrote that on Violet’s behalf. I remember assuming it was for one of Violet’s old-lady friends, because of the name Maybell.” He shrugs.

“What’s wrong with the name Maybell?”

“Never said there was anything wrong with it,” he replies lightly. “Anyway, got a couple moving trucks coming to haul furniture and big-ticket items away to auction. Violet was a packrat, but lucky for us she had some good stuff hidden here and there. The jewelry should go for a high price, especially, and if we’re thrifty we might be able to use all that money to fund renovations.”

“I’m going to advertise an estate sale,” I inform him. “For the items that you thought were too inconsequential to take to auction in Maryville.” I try not to come off as accusatory, but it’s a sore subject. I get the feeling Wesley wages an eternal battle between needing to be the wallpaper and having to be the centerpiece. He takes charge in situations even when he doesn’t want to and I do. Let me be the centerpiece! I’d love the opportunity to shine. “There’s so many products still in their boxes, brand-new, that it’s stupid to not try to sell them.”

“Here?” The pizza he’s holding up goes sideways, a mushroom sliding off. “An estate sale here?”

“Yes.” I can’t resist. “Your expression. It’s like if a person could be crispy.”

“Crispy?” He makes a face.

“There’s your other expression. You have two of them. One is crispy and the other is sour milk.” I point, grinning. “Wait. That’s a new one. Mystified.”

It’s like he waves a wand over his face, how rapidly it goes blank. “Your expression is—” he begins, then clams up.

“Go on,” I dare him.

“Never mind.” His cheeks are turning pink. Not mystified, not sour milk, not crispy. One might almost think Wesley Koehler has become embarrassed.

It makes me want to poke the bear. “What were you going to say?”

“Nothing.”

He stomps off, and I laugh. He stomps harder.

It’s all fun and games until he tracks me down after the trash has been hauled away, tossing me rubber gloves and a mop. “Hope you don’t mind getting your hands dirty, miss big-shot event coordinator.”

I’m stretched out lazily in an empty claw-foot bathtub that inexplicably sits in the center of the ballroom, reading the smutty parts of one of Violet’s old Harlequins. He glances at the cover and a muscle in his cheek jumps.

“I’ve been getting my hands dirty since I got here,” I retort dryly. “You aren’t the only one who’s made a few trips to the dumpster, sir.”

But I don’t think I’ve appreciated the irony until now, easing the gloves over my fingers, that I’m being forced into taking up the housekeeper role again. I wish we had the budget to hire a professional cleaning crew, but we’ve got to save money wherever possible and that means fumigating, painting, scrubbing, bleaching, patching, all by ourselves. My gaze darts to the ceiling corners, where Violet might be watching us and, it can only be assumed, laughing wickedly. I am starting to visualize her with horns instead of a halo.

“Don’t mix chemicals. Make sure to keep the windows open while you clean. If you pass out, it’ll take an ambulance half an hour to get here.”

“Thanks, man.” I give him the thumbs-up, but my gloves are too long, so it just looks like I’m holding out my hand at an odd angle. “I’m aware that mixing chemicals is a no-no, but it’s good to know if I pass out you won’t even drive me to the hospital.”