“Oh, hon. I’ll get it.” The sarcasm came without forethought and her regret moved rapidly to her gut. She laughed—always a good cover—and bounced up the back steps to Eliza’s side. “I’ll do it. I just got carried away admiring your beautiful home and grounds. This is such an amazing place. It’s so peaceful I actually forgot there were things to do. Forgive me. I’ll be the consummate guest from this moment on and help with everything.”

“You don’t have to help with everything. I just needed to know what groceries to put up.” Eliza took the empty beer bottle from Amy’s hand.

Amy followed Eliza’s straight back into the house as she held the empty beer bottle out in front of her, as if it would bite. She tossed it in the kitchen garbage and wiped her hands on a dishrag.

Eliza turned to Amy. “Another?”

“No, thank you. I’ll put up the groceries.”

“When you’re done, your room is the second on the right down the hall. I believe your husband is in there unpacking.” Emphasis on the word “husband.”

“Good. I was wondering where he went. Where’s Molly?”

“She’s on the front porch, reading, I think.”

“Thank you, Eliza. For everything. For inviting us . . .”

“You’re welcome, Amy. It’ll be fun.”

Amy unloaded the weekend’s worth of planned meals into Eliza’s labeled and precise kitchen. She needed to lie down with the acidic taste of an empty stomach and the buzz of a full beer in her head.

With the last loaf of bread plopped into the labeled breadbasket, Amy walked down the hall filled with twig-framed pictures of vintage hunting-magazine covers. She pushed open a bedroom door. “Phil, you in here?”

Phil stood next to the bed, unpacking with familiar movements; he laid piles at the end of the bed, identical to the ones he’d made in the suitcase. He had his own system: shirts in a pile, briefs in a pile, shorts combined with bathing suits. These heaps would be reviewed for depth and width before he decided which drawer to plant them in.

He turned to Amy. “There you are.”

She leaned against the doorframe desperately wishing she’d eaten. She glanced around the room, squinting against the sun filtering through oak-stained shutters onto a twig bed, a plaid quilt, carved bear lamps.

“Such original decorating, huh? A lot of creative thought went into this,” she said.

“I detect some sarcasm, honey.”

“I should cut poor Eliza a break. She didn’t decorate a square inch of this place. She inherited the house, the decorator and the plaid quilts from the same place she inherited her stick-straight still-blond hair and crystal blue eyes—from good genes, great money.”

“Ame, sit down. What’s your problem?” He patted the bed.

“Where, exactly, am I to sit with all your perfect little piles?”