In the great room, Miriam sat stiffly as if she might shatter. Miriam’s friend Cole lounged on a settee, though Noelle still wasn’t clear on why he was there. She’d asked him if he had a job to get back to and he’d changed the subject. Hannah was leaning against the fireplace, and Noelle fretted that her friend’s legs were close to giving out. Noelle rose, wrapping an arm around Hannah’s shoulders to lead her into a corner.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “What can I do?”

Hannah shook her head. “You can’t help. I was just wishing Levi Blue were here.”

“That’s the worst thing you, or anyone, has ever said to me,” Noelle replied.

Hannah laid her head on Noelle’s shoulder, and Noelle patted her hair like a child. Levi, the Matthewses’ eldest son and Hannah’s evil ex, was Noelle’s least favorite human being on Earth. He should be here, he’d grown up here, but Noelle was grateful he wasn’t. She could protect Hannah from a lot of things, but if Levi were here, he would break her heart again, and Noelle would be powerless to stop it.

“Breathe,” Noelle whispered. “What would Cass tell you?”

“Cass would tell me there were too many fucking people in her house, and to stop letting them eat all her deviled eggs,” Hannah whispered back.

“Well I can’t fix Cass being gone or heal the damage that is Levi, but I can fix one problem. Let’s go get some deviled eggs,” Noelle said, grateful to have a plan of action instead of floundering around feeling useless and sad, “and then, fortified, we will rejoin the madding crowd.”

“An egg-quisition plan!” Hannah announced, her voice brave if wobbly.

Noelle walked behind Hannah, shielding her from being intercepted by relatives. She would get Hannah fed and keep her from collapsing. That was a thing she could do.

Guests from years past who hadn’t made it to the funeral wandered in over the next few days. Each carried food and memories. They told story after story, giving Noelle back pieces of her heart. The cousin Cass had taken on joyrides on long summer nights, the friend’s business she’d quietly financed, the one-woman show she’d run for a week in Paris before she got bored. Nine decades of eccentric, joyful, idiosyncratic life.

Noelle had needed this. When her parents died, she’d been alone, and all she’d been able to do was get up in the morning, stay sober, and go back to bed. This process was good. She watched Miriam and Hannah say Kaddish, a minyan around them, and felt for the first time a tiny hope that someday, maybe, she wouldn’t be drowning in this grief.