Abigail felt a visceral relief when her daughter, Sarah, chose to play field hockey at the University of Connecticut, a state school, rather than at Connecticut College, an expensive private school. Sarah assumed her mother’s tears were sentimental, that she was reflecting on her daughter’s years of hard work, morning lifting, and unrelenting focus on her sport, but really, Abigail wept because she knew they could hold it together financially for a few more years, until they could finally sell the house.

The damn house was both the golden goose and the clapboard noose. When George’s aunt Eleanor had left them 4701 Water Street, it seemed like a dream come true, a genteel address that ensured a lovely life. When the couple first met in New York City, they used Aunt Eleanor’s coastal home as a getaway from the city. Over the weekends, Abigail and Eleanor grew close, bonded by a love of hydrangeas and gin and tonics. And George was like the son Eleanor never had. When she died, a proper Yankee death with little fuss, no one was surprised the house went to her nephew and his wife.

New parents at the time, Abigail and George eagerly left New York City to start their suburban dream. Abigail would give up her job at Merrill Lynch in the marketing department to stay home and care for Chase, meet other mommies, and get a Volvo wagon and a Labrador. George would commute in and out of the city on the train and have two separate lives: a Manhattan Expense Account life during the week and a Connecticut Golf Dad life on the weekends. It felt like they’d earned this lifestyle.

The only catch was the caveat in Aunt Eleanor’s will that they hold on to the house for thirty-two years, a specific number that neither attorney nor family could explain. But Aunt Eleanor wanted George and Abigail to stay put—no sales, no sublets, no substantial remodels that changed the profile of the house. (As if the zoning commission would allow such a thing in a registered historic home.) To ensure that George and Abigail didn’t become house poor, the practical Eleanor had even created a monetary trust for home maintenance. Abigail had complained to her friends that the Ghost of Aunt Eleanor controlled their every financial move. But over time, she came to see the aunt’s will as a document that protected George from himself. Who knew how many times he might have mortgaged the property to finance a bad investment?