Especially because this was the South, Ayanna expected the usual borderline racist nonsense that the owners heard slaves clanking and shuffling along the hallway. It was the trend lately. Now that there was a willingness to even consider slavery as something that might have had an impact on the present, a new flavor of white people who appeared to be obsessed with absolving themselves of inherited sins seemed to have emerged. They appeared to have only two contexts for Black people in the US, their imagined ideas of what slaves were and those of the popular filmmakers and writers whose focus was the enslaved people of the United States. She was tired of walking through a house that was large and unattainable and being asked by these people to banish any potential trace of a Black person who might have a claim on it. What made white people so certain that the people who had been enslaved hadn’t had their fill of dealing with white people? Maybe, Ayanna would think as she threw white flowers around those spaces, just maybe, those ancestors were relishing in the rest and peace they deserved.

“I think my brother is here,” the woman said.

Oh, Ayanna thought, and felt a little guilty for assuming.

The woman said she had recently sold a screenplay that was loosely based on her brother’s life. He was older than her, had been very comfortable in life, an explorer. She said those facts as if they were normal things to say about a sibling. Her eyes seemed a little glazed, she kept looking behind Ayanna and around the house. As far as Ayanna could see, no one was here.

“Can I have a glass of water?” Ayanna asked, not because she needed a drink but to calm the woman down. She was annoyed at herself for forgetting her name. Preoccupied with Felix, with herself, she was trying as hard as she could to remember every single aspect. Ayanna could only fumble for the client’s name: Maggie? Missy? Margaret?

The woman was grateful for the break. She led Ayanna to the kitchen, shuffling in her platform slippers. Most of the house had already been redone, the floors painted ivory, the walls other cream tones. The colors that appeared were a camel-colored couch, black trim around a door, and gray. It was supposed to be, Ayanna knew, peaceful and luxurious, but all homes like these did was make her wonder how much everything cost and look for the discreet cash register. Unremarkable art on the walls. A container of those rich-person roses that were guaranteed to last for an entire year in their suede containers.

In her refrigerator, the woman had either water with some rosemary and lemon or quartz-charged water.

“Quartz,” Ayanna said. Maybe it tastes like minerals, she thought. They sat together at the long table, shiny enough that it reflected a distorted view of their faces.