“Your father was born upstairs in this house,” Cricket said, “too impatient to wait for Grandmomma to get to the hospital. Did you know that, Daisy?”

“You’ve told me,” I said. About a hundred times, including twice in the last week.

“The Limoges,” Cricket said. Spoons. Spoons. More spoons. All on the counter. “You should take it. Wallis wouldn’t want it now, I don’t think. Maybe someday. But now it’s yours.”

“Which set is the Limoges?”

She pointed to the stack of white porcelain with petite purple flowers.

I thought about how often I chipped my sturdy white cereal bowls as they came out of the dishwasher. The Limoges would be wasted on me. If I were the kind of person who wanted to own and display fine china, I’d know that by now. “There are one hundred pieces of china in that set. Isn’t most of it in a barrel in the attic? Where would I keep it?”

“Use the barrel as a side table,” Cricket said, “next to your couch. I was in that shop on M we love the other day—”

“You can’t shop, Cricket.” I tried not to sound like a scold. I really did.

Cricket’s hands paused in her work. Then she cleared her throat. “I was just looking,” she replied. “Anyway, the girl was trying to sell me an old soda pop crate for seventy-five bucks. Can you imagine?”

“I can’t take the china, Cricket,” I said, hoping this would nudge her toward the inevitable. The china she’d have to sell; we had Gregory’s debts to pay, and our lawyer cost six hundred dollars an hour.

“You mean you won’t take it.” Knives now. Butter knives, so many butter knives. “This. Is. Our. Home,” she said, and I knew she meant more than this house. All over Georgetown, there were plaques that bore our name, on the church, the park, the university hospital. As a tween, she had walked me around the neighborhood and pointed them out, giving me, in her words, an education.

Two decades later, those plaques remained. For now.

“It’s just plates, Mom. It’s just stuff.”

Cricket stopped sorting. She walked around the island and wrapped her arms around me. I tensed, feeling trapped, wishing Wallis would come down. Cricket had put on perfume, bless her. “This is yours, though, Daisy. This stuff,” she said, voice cracking, “it’s really the only stuff you’ll get, in the end.”

“Please don’t cry.” I gripped her forearms, not knowing if I should push her away or draw her closer.

“I was a good mother, wasn’t I?” she asked. “Did I not teach you civility, dignity? Enroll you in the best schools? Give you priceless experiences? Those pink curtains in your bedroom, with the pom-poms? I made those.”

“Breathe, Cricket,” I pleaded.