Tritia pushed open the door and walked inside. Irene’s house was decorated with antiques, though they had not been antiques when originally purchased. The foyer was dominated by a large halltree, and the living room contained not only antique bookcases and china cabinets but a pristine Victrola and a beautiful baby-grand piano. Tiny porcelain figures, collected for the past half-century, lined shelves on the wall. The house was warm and comfortable, filled with healthy plants, and Tritia always felt good here, happy, as though she were in some sort of sanctuary protected from the outside world.

Irene was in the kitchen, plucking leaves from a tied bunch of dried plants. She often made her own tea from a mixture of mints and flowers she grew in her garden, a wonderful brew that Doug and Billy both said tasted like dirt. The old woman turned around as Tritia entered the room, her fingers continuing to skillfully defoliate the dried herbs as if they worked on their own, disassociated from the rest of her body. “How’ve you been, sweetie?” she asked. “Haven’t seen you in, what, two or three weeks?”

Tritia smiled. Irene was the only person she’d ever met, young or old, who could say words like “sweetie” or “honey” without making them sound either cloying or condescending. “I’m okay,” she said.

“You don’t sound okay. You sound kind of tired. In fact, you look a little peaked as well.”

“Stress,” Tritia said.

The old woman stopped tearing leaves and used a corner of the apron she was wearing to wipe sweat off her forehead. “Doug?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just…” Her voice trailed off. “I don’t know what it is.”

“I got your card this morning.”

“Card?” Tritia felt a warning light go off in her brain. She had sent Irene no card.

“Yes. It made me laugh, but I don’t know why you sent it. I’m not sick.”

Tritia felt the stability she’d begun to recapture the last few days recede, a familiar fear welling within her. She looked around the kitchen and suddenly the room itself seemed strange, the light coming in through the window not quite right. “I didn’t send it,” she said.

The old woman’s face clouded over. She was silent for a moment, though her fingers continued to work. “I was afraid of that.” There was no surprise in her voice, no emotion at all. It was a statement of fact, delivered straight.

Tritia moved over to the breakfast nook and sat down. “You know, too.”

“Know what?”

“About the mailman.”