“No. Tyler left. Nobody’s here. I can’t use the barn they gave me. It’s falling apart.”

“It probably does need work. But that’s how they do things, you know.”

“Susan. We talked about this. It’s an emergency. I agreed to seven paintings for my show. This is number seven. I don’t turn in number seven, I don’t get paid for numbers one through six. This could set me back financially for actual years. You said you understood. I need a usable space—a big one. How do I get into the other buildings?”

“All right.” She sighed into the phone, sounding annoyed. “I suppose…my girl Friday, Julian, can bring you a key to another studio tomorrow. Meet him up front at…say, eight thirty. Don’t be late.”

She hung up before I could beg her to send him tonight.

*  *  *

Alone in the bungalow, I ripped into a bag of gas-station popcorn and unpacked. I had two bags of groceries, six pounds of coffee beans, a bottle of bourbon, a sixer of cheap beer, and three cases of seltzer. The metal cabinets in the kitchen thankfully revealed plates, cutlery, a coffeepot, and a smattering of pots and pans.

My clothes, destroyed in the fire, weren’t great to begin with. They’d been easily replaced in one gin-soaked afternoon with Atticus. Given free rein in the Forest Hills Salvation Army a mile walk from his shipping container, he selected variations on one theme: Dennis the Menace. Out of the duffel Atticus packed came cutoff jean shorts, oversize secondhand t-shirts, overalls, and multipacks of underwear and socks from the drugstore. His idea of a joke. Fine. After I dumped out a bag of brand-new toiletries from Ricky’s into the bathroom—soap, toothpaste, hair bleach, toner, and a purple lipstick it seemed I’d never have the occasion to wear—stacked four paperbacks from Goodwill into a pile, and duct-taped the hole in my leg, my hands were empty.

Unpacking my entire life had taken forty-five minutes.

I stood on my tiptoes to get the duffel onto the closet shelf. As I reached, pushing it to the back, I noticed one set of initials carved in the wood: MFC. I ran my fingers over the letters and wondered how long ago this house had welcomed a guest. I tried to imagine it before the leaves and cobwebs took over.