I made for the service drive, lined with delicate purple flowers, and snuck in through the basement. The Cottage had no shortage of trap doors, secret passages, hidden call boxes, discreet pulley systems for dumbwaiters and—what would come in handy for me today—back staircases. Inside was a frenzy. The massive coal-fired stove Maggie and I had used to play restaurant was a staging area for chafing dishes, and the original butcher-block island, ten yards long, was piled with aprons and towels and enough punch bowls for a year of cotillions. A group of caterers charged down the tiled service staircase, a whirlwind of endless demands and barked instructions. The Cottage was built, above all else, to impress. To dazzle. This meant hiding the work that enabled its survival, keeping the madness and the sweat tucked away.

I let the caterers by, then skipped up two flights, where a swinging door dumped me out in the part of the house reserved for the lords and ladies. “That credenza can’t be moved!” I flinched at the commanding voice of The Land’s grande dame, and my sister’s future mother-in-law, Susie Utterback, echoing from below. “It’s heavier than a damn whale, just leave it be!”

As kids, my siblings and grandmother had put soap and water onto these parquet floors and turned this hallway into a barefoot ice-skating rink. Now it was so plushily carpeted I couldn’t hear my own quick footsteps.

Keep it moving.

I recited these words—this prayer—in my head past my old bedroom. Though I hadn’t seen inside since we’d moved, I knew Susie had torn out the small reach-in closet of drawers for pressed undergarments, as well as the high-tank pull-chain toilet and the cloudy onyx sink that I’d stained pink with an ill-conceived adventure with hair dye.

In Susie’s orange-sherbet sitting room, Maggie could not turn her head—a young woman with a holster of makeup was applying her lip liner—but still she beckoned for me. “Cassie!” She was perched on a tall director’s chair, wrapped in a plush bathrobe, bare feet, long clips in her hair. Around her a team of three swirled—the makeup artist, the makeup artist’s assistant, the hair person with the spray and the iron. “You made it!”

I toed off my sneakers by the door; God help me if I tracked dirt into Susie’s boudoir. “Hello, my Buggie Bug Bug,” I said, squeezing between the group to give her a tight, wiggly hug. I wasn’t thrilled to be back in Newport, but I was very glad to see her. My sister: those defined calves! The graceful, swan neck! That glowing skin, touched now by the flattering bronze of early summer! I’d hate her if I didn’t love her so much.

“I missed you,” she murmured into my ear. She smelled of oranges and summertime.