She just needs a little more time, she tells herself. She knows she can sell it, maybe on the national market, to someone just moving to the area, someone who doesn’t know the history, someone who would think they were getting a really sweet deal. All it would take was a few cleverly worded write-ups. She can do it. She’s not the number one sales representative in the Superior North Region for nothing. Besides, it’s not unheard of for real estate agents to buy a house they are trying to sell. It’s probably a little more unheard of for them to lie about it, but she had no choice. She tries to imagine what would happen if Krista Shepherd finds out about what she has done – it would be like an animal exposing its belly or its throat, leaving itself open to attack. She doesn’t even want to think about what would happen if Shawn finds out. But she also can’t imagine Shawn spending the night at Hanna’s, so there’s that, too. It’s a business decision, she tells herself, sitting in her SUV in the parking lot of the bank, both hands on the steering wheel, breathing deeply. I’m a businesswoman. It’s a business decision.

She drives to the house. Her house. She puts the key in her lock and walks into her hallway, taking off her shoes and leaving them on her floor. She pads silently into her kitchen, where she stands over her sink, looking out her window into her yard. For a moment, she pictures another life, a life where she lives in this house, where she does dishes at night in this sink looking out over that yard with those trees and that fence, that one branch dipping down low into her field of vision, that one fencepost bent at an odd angle. She imagines a quiet morning spent in the breakfast nook eating toast and reading the paper, evenings curled up on a small, plush sofa watching hospital dramas on television, or reading a book by the fire, cool, clean floors that don’t leave your feet sticky, a compost bin full of orange peels, egg shells, and tea bags. Long, hot baths followed by freshly laundered sheets. Another life, contained. A life alone.