My mother would insist that her filthy Bennet boys were the reason she required a maid service three times a week, but we all knew a cover-up when we saw one. Truth was, Mrs. Bennet was a terrible housekeeper, as evidenced by the piles of orphaned things lining the walls as I exited the bathroom in a towel, propelled by a pulse of steam. Piles of books leaned into each other between the occasional cardboard box filled with more things with no home. Glancing into one might reveal a whisk, several lost socks, a stapler, loose photographs, a pair of shears, floral wire, fabric scraps. Mom needed places to stow things like a magpie, lost things, extra things. Things without status but not unimportant enough to throw away. She always held hope she’d find that extra sock or that she’d remember to return the whisk to the kitchen, not knowing why she’d brought it up two flights of stairs in the first place.

The Bennet home—a five-thousand-square-foot Victorian brownstone—had been in our family for a hundred and eighty years, passed down through generations of women. It occupied the space next to and above the flower shop, purchased along with four properties on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, behind which my predecessors had built our greenhouse.

We were a novelty in the Village, the only greenhouse of its kind and size in Manhattan. It had once brought us fame and fortune. My grandmother had sold the properties adjacent to ours in the seventies, which had previously been rented out to fund the expansion of Longbourne to include a handful of shops throughout the city. But under Mom’s rule came the internet boom, the introduction of 1-800-ROSES4U, and the rise of Bower Bouquets, our rival flower shop. The Bowers bought into the internet bouquet business, and as they flourished, we withered, retreating slowly until only our flagship remained.

We only stayed afloat because Longbourne was a staple in our community, supplementing our income selling wholesale flowers to local shops. None of my siblings knew how bad it was, only me. I was here in the trenches—literally—and knew. Or suspected at least. It coincided with the progression of Mom’s rheumatoid arthritis and the gradual loss of her hands, her duties sliding on a slow scale into Tess’s lap. It was easy to ignore, as I spent my days in the greenhouse with Dad, avoiding the shop. But my brother Marcus figured it out when the deposits into our trusts dwindled. And when he really looked, he found the shop was in ruin.