By evening, when the last of the visitors have left, we are too exhausted to think about burying Dad the next day. That’s the point, I guess. The kitchen is packed with food that Lina has efficiently stored, but she, too, has left. And Anne, who needs to reclaim a semblance of control, decides to grill chicken. No matter that there is more chicken than anything else in the fridge, she can’t fathom eating any of that, she declares in distaste, and sets to work.

I’m not about to argue. The truce between us is fragile. Far be it from me to risk breaking it.

We let her direct us—salad bowl there, she orders Joy with the hitch of her chin, and thin-slice that zucchini, she instructs me with a nod at the cutting block. She sends Margo to the market for fingerling potatoes, sends Bill to the package store for beer. Then she spots tall, tousle-haired, stubble-jawed Jack planted against the dining room jamb, and when he asks what he can do, she stares.

Leave, she’s about to say when I step in front of her. Truce or not, I can’t be silent. Jack is here for me, maybe even for Joy. “Please?” I whisper.

Her eyes snap to mine, and I brace myself. But her tone is surprisingly mild. “Dad would not want him here.”

“Dad won’t know,” I offer in apology. “Please? Let him help.”

I’m not sure whether she feels he’ll be a buffer between us, whether she concedes for the sake of Bill, who does like him, or whether she’s just too tired to fight. But after a minute, she says, “Fine,” and looks at Jack. “You, set the table.”

Joy laughs.

Anne shoots her a dark look before grabbing the grill brush and heading out back.

My daughter rounds innocent eyes on me. “What? He can scrape the grill. He can vacuum the living room or … or fix the doorbell, which, FYI, does not work. What does he know about setting a table?”

“Oh ye of little faith,” Jack murmurs with a smirk and, straightening from the jamb, pivots into the dining room.

After slicing the zucchini, I join him. He has managed to find the basics and is circling the table with napkins and plates. Leaning against the peach-painted wall with my arms folded, I consider the absurdity of what he is doing—and where—until he’s done, at which point he puts a shoulder to the wall close beside me. This is the first time all day that we’ve been alone.

His voice is low. “Doing okay?”

I lean just that little bit sideways so that we touch, my form of self-medication. His warmth always loosens me up, and I need that after the day that was. “Weird,” I say. “So many people. To hear them talk, he was beloved. Is that seriously what they remember?”