Dusty blue paint peeled off the rotted wood siding in sheets. There was a hole in the corrugated tin roof large enough to see from the road. The open windows had screens, but they were dotted with rips big enough for birds to fly through. It was a sad, rickety little thing that drooped and sighed. Nobody had taken care of it at all.

It looked exactly how I felt.

It did have a lovely set of bones beneath the scabs of worn-down sparkle linoleum and peeling marbled wallpaper. The front door opened into a small entryway, with hooks for coats and a built-in umbrella stand. To the left was a single-wall Pullman kitchen—the original, from the 1950s—made from a single set of metal cabinets connected to an ancient stovetop and refrigerator, the whole set stamped GENERAL ELECTRIC. The kitchen faced a large living room whose glass-fronted walls looked out upon the lake, and there was a small bedroom off to the left, with an adjacent screened-in sleeping porch.

Still—the toilet was so old that I was afraid the elevated tank would fall off the wall at a pull of the chain. The stall shower was teeny and smelled like rotten eggs. Piles of dirty leaves cluttered the corners; water stains bloomed from the ceiling; and there was absolutely zero furniture. A striped hammock swung limply on the deck, and a cracked brown plastic landline phone was fastened to the wall, but the bungalow was otherwise empty.

Tyler smacked a vintage push-button switch with the butt of his hand, and the two plain bulbs hanging from the ceiling buzzed alight. It was Depression-era depressing. I must have done something wrong, I thought to myself. A nagging voice in the back of my heart said, meanly, It’s because you’re not as successful as everyone else. They don’t think you deserve anything better, because you don’t.

“Thanks so much for hosting me,” I said sincerely, my hands pressed against my heart. “It’s so generous of you. I’m in a bind, and—”

“Well, Susan buys a lot of Marlin’s work, so.” He set his jaw and shrugged.

I was bitten by that—chastened—and couldn’t imagine a reply. I leaned against the wall, suddenly dizzy, carsick from six hours behind the wheel, and closed my eyes.

“There’s furniture in the main building, mattresses and things like that, if you need it.”

I was stunned. Of course I needed furniture. What the hell kind of question was that?

“You can do whatever you want with your own space,” he continued. “Obviously, you’re Marlin’s guest so you’ll need to check with her about anything major.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but I took it to understand that he was absolving himself of responsibility for me.