“No harm done,” Kant said, running the towel across the tabletop. She couldn’t tell if he was talking about the coffee or her faux pas. The heat in her face refused to fade. She felt like she was burning alive from it and shoved the sink’s tap on as far as it would go to rinse the cloth.

The kitchen had a second door, close to the fridge, letting out directly to the porch. It seemed rarely used, based on the clumping dust caught around its edges. A black dog door had been added to it, the rubber flap barely flinching as the wind whipped outside. Margot latched on to it, desperate for a change of topic. “Do my parents have a dog?”

“They did.” Kant had come up behind her and placed the tea towel in the sink. “A long time ago.”

“Huh.” She swallowed thickly. “I like dogs.”

Kant leaned back against the counter while Margot rinsed the towel. He was watching her again, frustratingly inscrutable.

As she wrung water from the towel, he said, “I imagine you’ll want some privacy to settle in. Do you need anything? Soap, spare toothbrush?”

“Oh. No. My bags are in the car.” He’s making his excuses to leave. Honestly, I can’t blame him. She swallowed. “Thanks, though.”

“Sure.” He pushed away from the counter and picked up his coat off the back of the chair. “I’ll stop by tomorrow morn to show you around the cellar. If you need anything before then, this is me.” He indicated a slip of paper fixed to the fridge by a magnet painted to look like a cartoon sun.

The paper was old, yellowed, and curling around the edges, but it held a handwritten phone number. Margot had the sense the paper hadn’t been needed for many years; her parents would have known Kant’s number by heart, but they’d never gotten around to clearing it from the clutter. Now, it was being passed down to her, along with everything else.

“Margot.” Kant, coat held loosely in one hand, had stopped in the doorway. He didn’t turn to look at her but shifted his weight uneasily in the silence. “Your parents were always hard workers. Except for September seventh. Your mother always stayed at home on September seventh. The few times she came down to the business, I could tell she’d been crying. I don’t know if that makes any difference.”

Margot faced the sink, her fingers growing numb from the beads of water drying across her hands. In the distance, the front door opened and then closed with a muffled click as Kant let himself out.

September seventh. My birthday.

Slowly, Margot approached the kitchen table. The photograph waited in its center. A drop of spilled coffee had landed on it, tingeing one corner brown.