Roland’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. His eyes were locked on the owner line, and I knew exactly what he was reading, because I had chosen that name myself six months earlier at the lawyer’s table. Sheila crossed the kitchen and snatched the folder from his hands, her cookies for the realtor forgotten on my mother’s china plate.

She read it too. Then she read it again, the way Roland had, as if staring hard enough would change the letters. “Hazel Marchetti,” she finally said, her voice thin. “Who is Hazel Marchetti?” The young woman in the hallway smiled for the first time, jingling the ring of keys in her hand. “I’m the girl your husband told everyone disappeared,” Hazel said. “And I’m the owner of the house you were about to sell out from under his mother.”