“I can’t imagine ever wanting to work on a house again after all this,” Maja said. She felt a momentary prickle of something. Not jealousy, exactly. She had zero interest in flipping houses. And she had no expectation that working at the gallery would ever pay nearly as much as a job like Ted’s. But hearing about Aneeta’s success, despite her total lack of experience, gave Maja a familiar feeling of tightness in her throat, like the ache of an old injury. A feeling that she’d somehow been sidelined and had failed to reach her full potential. She’d always batted this feeling away, telling herself that she had more time, if that’s what she wanted. She could always start painting again. And she’d talked to Louis about the possibility of his going in with her on opening an offshoot of the gallery in New Falls. “There’s a lot of money down here,” she’d told him, “and only so many paintings of covered bridges that people can hang in their big houses.” He was thinking it over, but Maja couldn’t tell if he would bite. And then here was Aneeta, running her own real estate business. Her accent might be fake, but the money sounded very real.

Maja sighed and downed the rest of her wine. “I feel like I can’t make anything work right now,” she said. “The house . . .” she trailed off. She didn’t want to get into the baby thing. “It just feels like one step forward, two steps back. And on top of everything else, our lease on the apartment is up in September. The building is converting to condos. There’s no way we’ll be able to extend it.”

Aneeta gave her arm a squeeze. “You’re in shock,” she said. “But this is just a setback. If I can get my flips fixed up in six months, I know you’ll be able to get your house back on track by then. Now, I don’t want to hear any excuses. You’re staying for dinner.”

Maja switched on her phone and saw that she had a series of missed calls and texts from Ted: I’m here. Where are you? Call me, I’m worried. She texted him back: Sorry. On my way.

“Thanks for the offer,” she said, “but I have to meet Ted at the inn. It looks like I’ll probably be down here at least through tomorrow. Can I take a rain check?”

“Of course,” Aneeta replied. “We’re here for you. Whatever you need.”