The inner door opened. A husky woman stood leaning against it. She looked to be in her mid- to late-seventies, with broad shoulders and short-cropped silver hair. She squinted out into the sunlight, her eyebrows pinched in a scowl as she looked first at Sheila, then at Martin.

When she recognized him, her scowl became a pleasant smile. "Marty!" She opened the screen door. "Lord, it's been ages!"

He held the door open as she hugged him, hugging her back with his free arm.

"How are you, Aunt Norma?"

"Better now that you're here." She held him at arm's length, looking him over. "You're getting gray, Marty. And those frown lines don't suit you. You should smile more."

"I'll try."

Sheila stood a moment under Norma's gaze as the woman looked her up and down.

"And who is this pretty young thing?"

Sheila laughed. Been a minute since anyone had called her "young." She stuck out her hand and introduced herself. "Marty's told me so much about you."

"Nothing bad, I hope." The woman smiled, but when she looked past them suddenly, her brow clouded. "Come in, come in, you'll let in the devil," she said, stepping aside to let Martin in.

Sheila turned to the street as an ancient pink Cadillac on the opposite side of the road drove off, engine chugging, spewing black exhaust. She didn't get a good look at the driver but whoever it was had been wearing a large hat, the kind an elderly woman might wear to church.

"Where's Ma?" Martin asked, following Aunt Norma to the kitchen.

"Oh, she should be back soon. At her physio."

The walls of the corridor between the living room and kitchen were bereft of photographs, where he remembered they'd once been crammed. The wallpaper was new to him, its predecessor burned away.

He glanced up the stairs. The old varnished hardwood had been painted and the carpet runner was new. As was the stair lift, which he supposed had been put in despite much indignant protest from Ruby.

Peering into the living room, he found it very similar to how he remembered it. His mother's carnival glass reading lamp on an end table beside her favorite chair. Over the fireplace hung the painting of the Ruby, the coffin ship she'd been named after, a three-masted vessel sailing a rough storm.

He knew if he looked closely, he'd see her crew desperately trying to keep the ship afloat. If he looked even closer, the ghostly, terrified faces of the passengers would be just barely visible peering out through dark slits in its hull. The painting had always scared him as a kid. He remembered hurrying past it after turning off the lamp on his way to bed for fear of seeing their frightened white eyes in the dark.

The television was new, at least for the house—an old tube TV with knobs and rabbit ears opposite the sofa and his mother's chair. Ruby never had much good to say about television, from what Martin could remember. While kids his age had talked about Saturday morning cartoons, he'd nodded along cluelessly. Even at the mental hospital Ruby had avoided it, preferring her books. He supposed Norma must have convinced her to get one, since the two women shared the house alone.