“I’ve got details to see to before I leave tomorrow. I’ll be home later,” he says.

I nod, draw Kat toward me, and take a seat on one of the benches. The car clangs as it grasps the cable deep in the slot, and we begin to move forward and up. Martin turns from us and walks away. I watch him until he is gone from view.

Back at the house, Kat and I explore all the cupboards and closets, discovering a great many things the doctor and his family decided to leave behind. The china cabinet still holds a good supply of dishes and glassware, and the linens closet is half-full. I imagine the doctor’s wife had to choose just her most favorite items to take, perhaps only those things that had been given to them as wedding gifts. I wonder if Candace was given beautiful linens and dishes when she married Martin, and if she was, where are they? Did Martin abandon everything that was theirs when she died? Did he sell them to pay for the move from Los Angeles to San Francisco? I wonder how long it will be before I can ask him a personal question like that.

In the boys’ room I take off the toy soldier bed linens as we await the delivery of the new pink bedcover and linens we purchased at the Emporium.

“Do you want that extra bed in here?” I ask Kat, who is silently watching me. Kat looks at the second bed and then back at me. She slowly shakes her head.

“That’s what I would do, too. You’ll have more room for your new doll carriage in here if we dismantle it and take it upstairs. Shall we?”

With minimal help from Kat, I drag the frame, the posts, and finally the mattress upstairs to the empty maid’s room and lean them up against one of walls. We head back downstairs, and I make tea for us—sugar tea for Kat like my gram used to make—and we sip our drinks as we await the first of the deliveries and also Martin’s return.

The groceries arrive first, then the Emporium goods, and then the undergarments and corsets and hosiery from the ladies’ clothing store. The new clothes for Kat arrive last.

Dusk begins to fall and I am anxious for Martin’s return. I set about turning on the electric lights in the house, and then the gas fireplace in the sitting room, as the day’s warmth is leaving the house. As we wait, Kat and I sit by the fire and work on one of the puzzles she chose—a tableau of sketched butterflies of every shape and color. When darkness falls completely and Martin is still not home, I light the stove and place pork cutlets that I rubbed with butter and dried sage into a roasting pan alongside potatoes and carrots so that supper will be ready when he finally returns.

But he is still gone when the food is ready, and Kat is yawning. I fix her a plate, which she eats, and then I take her upstairs and draw her a warm bath, all the while expecting to hear Martin’s footfalls on the stairs. But I don’t. After her bath, I tuck Kat into bed.