“No,” Lisa said. “Don’t put anything in writing about it not being absolutely finished. Andrea Fuller—my father’s executrix—will be here for the opening and I don’t want to give her any reason to say we haven’t met our requirements. You need to be finished by tomorrow night.” She looked down at me. “Just get it done,” she said.

“I will,” I promised.

How? I wondered, and I imagined that behind me, Oliver was wondering the same thing.

For the rest of the evening, I kept my earbuds in, tuning out the hammering from the other rooms. I focused only on the mural, working on the gray siding of one of the Mill Village houses. I felt panicky as I watched the minutes tick by on my phone. It was nearly ten o’clock. How was I going to finish this by the deadline? I was kicking myself for every minute I’d relaxed or eaten lunch or gone to bed early over the last few weeks … any minute when I could have been working. I was close to the end—so close—and yet I didn’t think I could meet the deadline even if I worked twenty-four-seven for the next two nights. I suddenly understood Anna’s desire to have the cot in the warehouse.

My music wasn’t calming me down, either. The next time Oliver passed through the foyer I called him over.

“I’m in panic mode,” I said from my seat on the floor. I detached my earbuds from my phone and handed it to him. “Add a playlist of your calming old-people music for me, please.”

It took him a minute to understand what I was asking. Then he laughed, and took my phone from my hand.

“Listen,” he said as he tapped the screen on my phone. “I talked to Wyatt and Adam. They’re willing to come in at six A.M. Sunday morning and staple the mural to the stretcher and hang it then. That gives you some extra time. You’ll be dragging at the gallery opening, but you’ll have it done.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I wondered if I could finish it even with those few extra hours.

“Don’t cave in to Lisa,” he said. “You have integrity. You won’t be happy with yourself if you rush through this last section.” He motioned toward the grassy corner of the mural.

I swallowed hard, suddenly emotional over his compliment, but it was more than that. “I don’t want Lisa to lose her house,” I said, my voice a whisper. I thought of Lisa’s attachment to her mother’s garden in the front yard. The handprints on the sidewalk. The height chart in the pantry. “I feel like it’ll be my fault.”