Punkin stood at the front door, barking furiously and wagging his tail. There were two vehicles. Ezra was emerging from his Jeep, and the box truck from the community thrift store pulled up alongside with Ezra’s friend Jake at the wheel.

It was only nine o’clock. On a Sunday morning. She didn’t know whether to be alarmed or grateful for her real estate agent’s dogged helpfulness.

Ivy ran to the bedroom and hastily stepped out of her flannel pajama bottoms and into a pair of jeans. She ran a brush through her sleep-tangled hair. She was halfway to the front door but turned around, bolted back to the bathroom, washed her face, and brushed her teeth.

The two men staggered under the weight of the massive, lumpy sofa as they lugged it up the porch steps and into the house.

“How on earth did you manage this? On a Sunday? This close to Christmas?” Ivy asked as Ezra nodded a greeting.

“Don’t ask,” Jake grumbled as he set the sofa down in the same exact spot he’d moved it from only a week earlier.

“I found his mother-in-law a new house. Three hours away,” Ezra said. “No more Sunday drop-in visits from Big Mama. He owes me. Big-time.”

“Consider that debt paid,” Jake said. He looked around the living room. “What next? You want the dining room table and chairs?”

“All of it, I guess,” Ivy said. “Especially the bed frame. And whatever else the thrift store didn’t sell.”

“It’s all out in the truck. Every dad-burned stick of it,” he added meaningfully.

“Jake?” Ezra’s voice sounded a warning. “We haven’t closed on Big Mama’s house yet. You might want to adjust your attitude.”

“I’m going.” Jake trudged out onto the porch, with Punkin bringing up the rear.

After she’d tipped Jake heavily, despite his halfhearted protests, she and Ezra watched the truck pull away from the farmhouse.

“I can’t thank you enough,” Ivy said. “Hauling all that stuff off—and then bringing it back on a Sunday—when you could be watching football, or, I don’t know, doing Christmas stuff…”

“Too early in the day for football. Anyway, I’m more of a pro baseball fan, myself,” Ezra said. He plopped down on the sofa, looked up, and patted the cushion next to him. “Come on, sit down for a minute. Every time I come over here, it seems like you’re in a constant state of motion. Don’t you ever slow down?”

“I do,” she protested. “How about you at least let me fix you some coffee or something?”

Ezra looked dubious.

She sank down onto the sofa beside him. “Okay, maybe you’re right. It’s part of my nature. I’ve always had a lot of pent-up energy. My grandmother used to call me Busy Lizzie. And it was high on the list of my ex’s very long list of ‘things I hate about Ivy.’”

“No offense, but your ex sounds like a dick,” Ezra said.

Ivy guffawed. “You know what? He really is a dick. I’ve wasted so much time this past year, beating myself up for being a failure as a wife, for not being what he needed me to be, I guess it didn’t occur to me until very recently that actually the divorce probably wasn’t all my fault.”