Only a few weeks ago, this comment might have made her feel flustered, angry. But by now—from the bathroom projects alone—she knew Will understood that every change she made in this apartment was significant to her. And by now she knew that he—even in spite of his own apparent lack of sentiment when it came to family heirlooms—didn’t judge her for it. A few days ago, he’d indulged her dozens of back-and-forth texts about the new sink faucet for the bathroom, Nora hesitant to pick anything too modern. Whatever you want, he’d text back, and every time, she liked it. Every time, she felt like he saw her.

“This room would be hard to change,” she said, casting her eyes around. Nonna’s bed and dresser, both from the year she’d been married: 1944, when she’d only been nineteen years old. Her lace coverlet, yellowed with age, purchased the year she’d moved to this building: 1990, when she was a widow of barely a year. A jeweled hairbrush and hand mirror, resting atop a silver tray that Nora dusted every week. Old pictures in elaborate frames. An infant Jesus of Prague statue on a small, delicate-looking table over in the corner. None of it was to Nora’s taste, really, but she loved it all the same, because Nonna had loved it.

And this is Nonna’s place.

She looked down at her lap, discomfited at the intruding thought. She had a familiar sense of being tugged in all directions. San Diego, Chicago. Austin, Deepa. Nonna, herself.

“You ever think about one of those coworking spaces?” Will asked, and their eyes met again.

“Like where you rent an office?”

“Yeah. My tenant downstairs uses one. You could ask her about it.”

“Oh, I—” Her own brow furrowed, considering. At first, not so much about the idea itself, but about the thought of going down two flights of stairs and knocking on the door of a person Will called a tenant. In Donny’s old apartment! She felt tangled up with the tugging sensation, tried to ignore it.

Anyway, a coworking space, that was definitely out of the question, no matter who she knew or didn’t know who used one.

“Austin wouldn’t pay for that,” Nora said. “It was already a leap to get him to agree to the telework.”

Will dropped his head in a nod. “Right, yeah.”

They fell into silence, and Nora felt ludicrously disappointed: everything good between them tonight ground to a halt with this additional disruption to their routine. See, Dee? she telegraphed, to her long-distance friend, a friend she’d just been asked to keep a secret from. We’re definitely not dating.

Will cleared his throat. “Is he—” He shifted against the doorframe. “Is he all right to you, though? Your boss?”