I glare at her a solid five seconds before she realizes her slipup. “Whose fault is that?”

She takes a breath. “Let’s not do this again. Okay?”

The only reason I let her off the hook is because I don’t want to send her back to bed for another nine days or more. “Fine.”

“The realtor called this morning,” she says with a barely concealed smile. “They sold the house. Isn’t that wonderful?”

My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach like a dead fish. The house sold. She means Moony’s house—my home. This is the event that got her out of bed, the switch-flipper. I feel nauseous. I don’t say a word.

“And she got a much better price for it than we expected. Turns out, small-town Louisiana is a hotter commodity than we thought. And you know, Edna kept that place cleaner than the pipes on a church organ.”

I listen with one ear while the other tries to make sure my heart is still beating somewhere down in my bowels. I knew this was coming, or so I tell myself. But thinking of someone else living in our little house, looking out my window with the red hibiscus, cooking in Moony’s kitchen, mopping her floors, mowing her grass…it leaves me hollow inside. And the hollow slowly fills with fire—the flames of envy and anger that come with thinking someone else will be living your life, the one you loved and cherished until it was taken away.

The tears slip down my cheeks, but Mary doesn’t notice. She’s prattling on about interest rates and property values and a lot of other things she actually knows nothing about. I try to tell myself this is good news, that maybe I can talk her into sharing a little of the money for my tuition. If I can get her to sponsor even one semester, I can get out of here and figure the next one out when I’m there. I remind myself that I have some kind of life here now. I have Daniel and the café, and I wouldn’t want to go back. Forward is a different story. But without Moony, the house is nothing but a carcass anyway. She was the spirit that made it home. There’s nothing else for me there.

“Hey, hey,” my mother says, leaning in. “Why the tears?”

I don’t get how she can understand her clients’ emotions, but she can’t understand mine. “I know Moony didn’t mean anything to you, but I loved her,” I snap, pulling away.

It’s unfair and I know it. Moony did mean something to my mom. I know that from the greeting cards I found under her bed.