“We’re going.” Cricket continued to stack silver. “Do you have a dress? Does Atlas have a tux? He’s still your plus-one?”

“We’re going to get looks,” I said.

“Then we better look good,” she said. Utensils forgotten, she drifted out of the room, muttering about dresses, about a Carolina Herrera she may or may not have already consigned.

I, too, left the kitchen and made for the dining room, cataloging what still needed to be done. The polished, three-leafed table—where my grandfather had built his business inspecting land plats, making deals with pawnshop owners and small-time hustlers, prospecting where people had still sold peaches and apples from farm stands, collecting titles from dairy farmers—would have to be sold, hopefully for a solid sum. Cricket had cared for it; there was not a single scratch. Mahogany chairs, old books, rugs, most everything would have to find new homes.

That thought, and the realization that this would be my last night sleeping in my childhood bedroom, made me shiver. This house hadn’t just shaped my youth, but my adulthood, too. After college graduation, when Cricket had to pry me away from the tiny apartment in Charlottesville I shared with two beloved friends and their gray parrot, I’d moved back to P Street. I’d meant only to stay a few months, maybe a year. A master’s degree, I thought. Education, maybe. It had been a brief, bright window when I could’ve escaped my father, the scale that measures concentrations of power, the running list that tells us who is up and who is down. But Wallis had been there, in the room next to mine, my baby sister, a young girl on the cusp of womanhood, needing my advice on outfits, on boys, on which brand of tampon to buy, and this house, this town, my family, all of it had turned my bubbly plans into sludge.

The evening shadows crept up on me. I turned on the chandelier, then the hall light, then the sconces along the stairs. I paused and listened for signs of life—or at least the sounds of packing tape—from upstairs, but it was silent.

No surprise, then, that I found Wallis sprawled on her back on her twin-size, scrolling through her phone. When she noticed me, she scooted over, and I crawled in beside her, turning on my side and tucking my hand underneath my cheek.

“If your life was a book,” she said, our noses inches apart, “what is the title?”

It didn’t take me very long to answer. We’d been playing this game, when times were rough, for years. I sometimes played it by myself when we were apart. “Everything Is Delightful.”

Wallis giggled. “Book of essays, I assume?”

“Clearly. And yours?”