Ann rolled the envelope around the pages and walked over to the fireplace. “Let’s forget we ever found this.”

“We already made copies. Ann, this is what Mom and Dad wanted. Noah will have to share the house with Michael’s daughter.”

THIRTY-SIX

Michael

Michael’s lawyer successfully fought Ann when she tried to contest the will. Finally, after months of legal wrangling, the judge issued a sharing agreement between Michael and Ann for the house on the Cape, if sharing was what you could call it. To Michael it felt more like two people “sharing” a rope in a tug-of-war. But he had to make the best of the situation, at least until Avery turned eighteen, and then who knew what would happen.

Every two weeks, occupancy changed hands between Michael and Ann. For someone who seemed so eager to sell, Ann rarely missed an opportunity to drive down from Boston to take advantage of her allotted time in the house, even in the heart of winter.

Things were just as strained between Michael and Ann as they were between himself and Poppy. Shortly after that awful night, Poppy showed up at his office again. It was a bad time. He was on the phone with Sharon Gold, who was upset about the bluestone patio he’d installed earlier that week, because one of the bigger pieces was already cracked. Sometimes that just happens, he explained, and he was happy to replace it. Jason stormed into his office and dropped a seed catalog on his desk. “They raised their prices again.” Jason left, Mrs. Gold kept screaming, and there was Poppy.

He smiled, happy to see her, anxious to debrief after that fight with Ann, but she didn’t smile back. “I just have one question,” she said. “Did you really…?”

He raised his finger—just a minute.

It was finally warm out. She wore a tank and shorts that showed off her muscles. She still had the build of the sixteen-year-old he remembered.

“Hang on,” he said to Mrs. Gold.

“Don’t tell me to hang on!” Mrs. Gold was one of his biggest customers, and usually she was OK to deal with.

“Did you or did you not take money from Anthony Shaw?”

“I can explain,” he said.

“Yes or no?” Poppy’s voice was unexpectedly shrill.

Mrs. Gold said she wasn’t sure she even liked the bluestone to begin with. “Are you sure it’s real?” she said. “Not some stone made in China that’s supposed to look like it’s real?”

“It’s real.”

“Answer me,” Poppy said. “It’s a simple question.”

Michael put his palm over the mouthpiece of his phone and said, “Yes, but—”

“You planned to force the sale of the house without telling me?”

“No, all I’d done was try to remove Ann as executor. I hadn’t even—”