Their ship docked at dawn. I did not go to the port. Instead I sat in my new apartment, a bright two-bedroom near the botanical gardens I had purchased outright with a portion of the sale, and I waited for the phone to ring. It rang at half past nine. Marcus, breathless, said they were driving to the lake house and asked me to meet them there.

I told him calmly that the lake house was no longer mine to meet him at. Silence stretched across the line, long and airless. Then he laughed, certain I was joking, and said Camille had already scheduled the contractors for Monday. That was the moment I opened the blue folder on my kitchen table and asked him one quiet question about the name printed on the final page.