On her way out to her car, she thanked the seller and noticed the woman was teary-eyed as she looked at the walking stick. Celeste didn’t understand the intense sentimentality people felt toward objects. She didn’t understand their attachment to their families in general. How could she?

She’d carefully arranged her entire life to make sure she had nothing to do with her own.

The drive to Provincetown seemed to take forever.

Elodie sat nestled in the back seat of the Lincoln Town Car, Pearl on her lap. Once they reached the Cape, she thought, Finally. But then, another hour to the godforsaken town her sister called home.

Elodie’s driver pulled up in front of the building with Celeste’s address. It was a Queen Anne house with a storefront on the lower level.

“You can just let me off here and find a place to park,” she said to her driver. “I’ll text you when I’m ready to leave.”

She adjusted Pearl’s leash and lifted her out of the car. The only wrinkle in her trip was her inability to find a hotel room on such short notice. The entire town was booked; apparently, according to the third hotel receptionist she spoke to, she was arriving in the middle of something called CabaretFest, and her options were limited. Some of these places didn’t even have turndown service! And while most places were pet-friendly, the few left available did not.

She decided she wouldn’t even stay the night. She would get Celeste’s sign-off on the auction contract and turn right back around for Manhattan. Then she’d worry about that niece of hers.

Inside, the store looked like a bohemian marketplace, with textiles and clocks and objets d’art. It took her a few seconds to spot Celeste’s longtime partner, Jack, behind a checkout counter to her right. He looked as scruffy and rakishly handsome as she remembered, with olive skin, silver hair in need of a trim, and white stubble along his square jaw. His small but expressive dark eyes widened when he saw her. She couldn’t blame him for being surprised; in the quarter of a century that her sister had lived on Cape Cod, she’d never once visited.

Pearl tugged on her leash and Elodie relinquished hold of it so she could meander over to a water bowl set near the counter.

“Elodie?” he said.

“Hello, Jack. You’re looking well. Is my sister around?”

“I’ll be darned. She didn’t even mention you were coming.”

“I wanted to surprise her,” said Elodie, mustering a smile that suggested whimsy and affection, not impatience and business necessity.

“She’s at an estate sale. You’re welcome to wait—”

Her sister breezed in the door, carrying an armload of items and talking a mile a minute.