“It’s this way.” She tilts her head toward the kitchen, leads me back. It’s an HGTV fantasy land. Old mixed with new. A showstopping cast-iron stove alongside state-of-the-art appliances, an updated subway-tile backsplash and farmhouse sink, a sprawling kitchen island with barstools lined up like soldiers, and original wood cabinetry. And to the right as we come in, nestled at the very edge of a back stairwell, an unassuming cupboard door. Maura undoes the latch, swings the door wide. An extra-large dumbwaiter.

“We removed the shelves decades ago for this very purpose. Give it a try with your bag,” she says.

It takes the both of us to haul it inside. The bag barely fits, and the bottom of the miniature elevator shudders under the weight. Maura seems nonplussed.

“My mother’s tea service weighed more than this, surely. The bitch of it will be your having to haul it from the third to the fourth floor. I’m not cut out for that anymore. I’m a firm sixty-eight—but not that firm.” She winks. It’s strange hearing the word bitch out of someone so old, but she’s already graced me with a creative array of curses in the car. It seems I have a cool grandma.

“Let’s go,” she says, halfway up the back stairs. The servants’ stairs, they would have been, way back. I wonder when they stopped having live-in servants here, but then I remember Suzanne. Maura explained to me that she used to be her assistant when she lived in New York, and she couldn’t function without her, so when she moved back to Seaview permanently, she set Suzanne up in the guesthouse in the backyard. Maura assured me she pays her a handsome salary to live in the middle of nowhere. I wonder if Suzanne has as rosy a view of the arrangement.

“This is where I leave you,” Maura says on the first landing. I peer around the bend, spying a spacious bedroom at the end of the hall. “It’s good to have you here, Cecelia, even if the circumstances are…well.” She sighs. Sniffs. Dabs at her eyes, shiny with tears. “My poor baby girl, Vanessa. Parents shouldn’t outlive their children,” she says, more to herself than to me, I think.

“If only you’d called me,” she continues. “I hate that you were alone at the end. That she didn’t have her mother. And you cremated her? Honey, there’s a family plot right here. Or if the problem was money, you know I have more than enough!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to get in contact with you. I sent an email to your agent, but didn’t hear back until it was too late.” It comes out a jumble as panic slams through me. That I fucked up what I was apparently supposed to do.