“Okay,” said Nora, even though she didn’t like tea. That kettle was Nonna’s.

Once Marian had it on the stove, she came back over and sat on the other side of the sofa, obviously avoiding any upholstered buttons.

“You’re just like her, you know,” she said. “Your grandmother.”

It wasn’t the first time Nora had heard this—not even the first time she’d heard it from Marian.

But it was the first time it didn’t sound all that much like a compliment.

“Now you know I loved her,” said Marian. “She was one of my best friends in the whole entire world, and I don’t suppose I’ll ever get over her not being here.”

Nora nodded, tears springing to her eyes. “Me neither.”

“But she was awfully stubborn. Like a mule, about things big and small.”

“She wasn’t.” Even as she said it, though, Nora felt a knot of uncertainty take up residence in her stomach. She’d always thought of stubborn people as people who couldn’t admit when they were wrong. But Nora had never really been in a situation where she’d thought Nonna had been wrong about anything.

“Now I think I knew her pretty well,” said Marian. “I knew her differently than you did, sure. So believe me when I tell you, she was stubborn. Couldn’t get her to budge on that wallpaper, for example. And do you know, thirty years ago there was a man who wanted to take her out, a very nice man whose company I happen to know she enjoyed? But did she go?”

This was a rhetorical question, but also it was Marian, so Nora had to answer.

“No?”

“No! And do you know why?”

Nora shook her head.

“Because she said it wouldn’t be the right thing to do to your grandfather.”

“But . . . ,” Nora said tentatively. “He was . . . dead?”

Marian widened her eyes, pursed her lips, and swept her hands out, palms up, in a gesture that began by encompassing the sofa, and then expanded to what was, Nora assumed, the whole entire apartment. This expression said, I hope I don’t have to waste any more of my time on this.

“I’m going to change the apartment,” she asserted, though she was in fact very surprised to hear Marian’s feelings about that wallpaper. “I am. Already I started working on the bathroom.”

“Great,” Marian said, though she didn’t really seem that impressed. “Of course you had help. From a very helpful person, who also did not want you living in a tomb for the rest of your life.”

Nora winced. Not so much at the tomb imagery (although that was very unpleasant!), but more at the thought of Will at the hospital—all day yesterday, when she wasn’t there. All last night, when she was. God, she had been such a jerk this morning.

She rubbed her hands over her face. The kettle started to rumble, and Marian stood, returning to the kitchen and making tea while Nora stared down at her lap and thought about calling Will.