I turned away and started up the brick steps to the house. It was built on the side of a hill, so you had to climb up a meandering, mossy brick path to access it. Along the way were several terraced gardens planted with ferns and hostas and flowers that could grow in the shade. A wheelbarrow filled with a tray of flowers was parked beside one of the garden plots, and a water bottle was perched on a nearby bench as if the gardener had stepped away for a moment.

Around the next bend the house came into view. The front door was painted turquoise blue, and it was opening already. Analemma shot outside, a blur of shiny black fur, and I had to drop the backpacks on the brick patio and kneel down to greet her, slobbery tongue and soft floppy ears and wriggly muscle.

“Hey, hey,” I said, laughing.

“Analemma, come,” my grandmother said. Ana’s ears perked up and she glanced back at Joan for an instant as if she were contemplating disobeying her, but Joan snapped her fingers, and Ana went. Then my grandmother smiled at me and held out her arms. “Aria,” she said. She was in her seventies, but you wouldn’t have known it by the way she looked. She was wearing faded jeans rolled up at the ankles, Birkenstocks, and a loose red-and-orange peasant blouse. Her gray hair was trimmed in a short, stylish cut that revealed dangling bronze earrings.

I got to my feet and let her enfold me in a hug. “Hi, Joan.” She smelled like coffee and lemon-scented soap, and as my arms went around her I felt a loosening within me, and for a horrifying second, I was afraid I would start to cry. I suppressed the urge, but when I pulled back, my grandmother gave me a sympathetic look and kissed me on the forehead as if I were a little girl.

“We’re going to have a good summer,” she said.

I didn’t have time to respond, because behind me Dad was arriving with my big suitcase, and then Analemma bolted forward, and Dad had to squat down to greet her. Joan told me I would be staying in the guest room. Dad would have to take the sofa bed for the couple of nights he’d be here.

Because the house was built on a hillside, the interior was on three levels, with most of the living space on the second floor. I carried my suitcase upstairs and rolled it through the living room, with its vaulted pine ceiling, Joan’s painting Southern Cross on one wall, and into the guest room. The double bed was covered in a patchwork quilt that looked like it was about a hundred years old; I recognized it from every previous visit. Over the bed were three black-and-white family photos, though they didn’t look like anyone else’s family photos.