The previous owners, I thought. Now that I had started down this path there was no changing it—I would see it through to the bitter end.

Now she turned into what was obviously a child’s room, a little girl’s, with a single bed, a pink lamp on a white nightstand, and purple rocking horses on the wallpaper.

“Have you been looking long?” asked Sharon. She was standing by the door, watching me. I crossed the room to the closet and slid the door open. It was empty save for one additional lamp, the twin of the one on the nightstand, its cord wrapped around itself.

“Looking long?” I repeated.

“For a home.”

Oh yes, I thought, of course. Looking for a home. In my excitement I had forgotten that this was, in fact, the customary reason to attend an open house.

“No,” I said truthfully. “Not long.”

“Well,” said Sharon, when it became clear I did not intend to elaborate. “It’s an excellent place to start.”

I murmured my agreement and crossed the room again. Surely we had spent enough time at this point, in this irrelevant room, but she gave no signs of moving and instead I went to the window, which overlooked an unremarkable backyard: a lawn, a patio, a table with a green umbrella. Here my father had barbecued, presumably. Sharon, taking her cue, had moved across the room to position herself by my side, so that we stood shoulder to shoulder, and I noticed something strange about her arm. Her wrist, both wrists, in fact, were covered in thin silver bracelets, some inlaid with turquoise, but that was not the strange thing. From her left wrist to her left elbow stretched a long, thin scar, as if someone had drawn a needle along it. When she saw me looking at it she turned quickly away.

“That’s half an acre down there,” she said, and when she reached the door she turned. She had recovered herself. “Shall we move on?”

“Are you familiar with the area?” she asked, as we moved down the hallway. “I noticed your accent.”

What a busybody Sharon was, I thought. What a little investigator.

“Oh yes,” I said. “I’ve lived here for quite some time.”

I mentioned the name of the university, and my employment there.

“Oh,” she said, clearly impressed. “Then I should probably call you Doctor. Do you by any chance know my brother-in-law?”

She named him, an orthopedist; I did not.

My capacity for this kind of chat was waning, and I opened a closet in the hallway. Inside it was ski equipment, a disco ball, and what appeared to be an Easter basket filled with miniature bottles of shampoo.

“Whose things are these?” I said, perhaps a little more sharply than I had intended.

“Yes, well,” said Sharon. “The previous owners had to move unexpectedly, and some things were left behind. It will all go, though, eventually—”