“It’s really nice. Mom always made it out to be so . . .”

“I know. Oh, and I hid the animal heads.”

“Hid? You mean you didn’t get rid of them? I’m not going to find one in my closet, am I, because I swear to god, Emmy, that isn’t funny.”

“But I saved some squirrels for you.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“Yes, I’m kidding. Let me help you with your stuff.”

Anna Maria opened the trunk, and Emilia balked.

“Please tell me all those coolers aren’t for me.”

“Yep. You have a freezer, right? Otherwise you’re gonna have to throw a party.”

“I have a freezer, but it’s the normal kind, not a restaurant walk-in.”

Emilia seized one end of a cooler and hauled it out of the car, irritation and affection vying for supremacy. Leave it to her mother to forestall any impending disaster with a wall of food.

Once the bulk of the edible matter had been stowed away and Anna Maria’s small suitcase huddled against the banister, Anna Maria collapsed into an armchair and leaned her head back.

“I love my children,” she said, “but I cannot wait until they turn five.”

“What’s so special about five?”

“They’ll use words besides ‘no’ and ‘why.’”

“You’ll miss this in a few years.”

“Probably. Mark has so much more patience with them than I do. They’re good kids. Monsters, but sweet when they want to be. I’ll be crying because I miss them by the time I leave, but god it feels good to get away.”

Emilia’s phone vibrated. She glanced at it, hoping it was Morgan, but it was just a text from her mother.

“So,” Anna Maria said, coming back to life. “What can I help you with while I’m here?”

Several dusty, tear-filled hours later, the remainder of the attic’s population had found its way into the trash or the back of their cars to be donated, and Emilia stood in the doorway of her father’s room with Anna Maria at her side. She’d left this room for last. Some of the boxes of things she’d decided to keep cluttered one corner, but the bed remained made in the same sheets, and the dresser and closet were still filled with her father’s clothes.

“I can’t do it,” she said.

“You don’t have to. You’ve got me. Have you thought about what you want to keep?”

Quite a few shirts and sweaters already mingled with her own clothes, but she’d grown accustomed to pulling out a piece of his clothing whenever her grief grew too hard to contain.

“All of it?”