True. But I can imagine how every time someone sees it for the first time they say, Oh, is that you? You know how people always say that to you when they see a flattering old photo: Is that you? And you wince, because they’ve just let you know how much you don’t look like that anymore, it might as well be somebody else. It’s humiliating. It shouldn’t be, but it really is humiliating.

I agreed that it was humiliating. On the other hand, I said, lots of people display their wedding photos from many years ago.

Well, it’s one thing to display a photo of yourself as a bride, but this . . .

Whatever, she said. It’s an eyesore. It throws the whole room off.

We could drape a sheet over it.

My friend laughed. Oh God, no. That would be even more unsettling.

There were other paintings throughout the house, mostly landscapes or seascapes. In the dining room: a large framed black-and-white photograph of the house itself, dated 1930.

I was relieved that, the eyesore aside, the house matched my friend’s expectations.

It reminds me even more of where I grew up, she said. My parents could have had the same decorator. Not that they’d ever in a million years have handed the keys over to a series of total strangers. How much people have changed.

I liked the house too. The arrangement of well-made furniture against just enough polished bareness. Some handsome ceramics but few other household ornaments. That balance of comfort and simplicity that I have heard called Shaker luxe.

It was the middle of the afternoon. Our drive had been delayed by several heavy downpours, but, cheeringly enough, the sun broke through at the very instant the house came into view. On the way, we’d eaten the avocado and tomato sandwiches I’d prepared for us that morning. Now all we wanted was coffee. When we’d made a pot we each took a mug to our room. We had decided that after unpacking we’d go for a quick tour of the town followed by an early dinner. There was a fish restaurant that had been extolled on some foodie website my friend had been browsing. I couldn’t help feeling, though, that this was for my sake. Though her ability to taste—and keep down—food was much better than it had been during her various bouts of chemo, her appetite was anything but robust. I pretended not to notice that it had taken her almost an hour to finish her avocado and tomato sandwich.