Chapter 7

The house settled into a new rhythm after Sunday. The relatives left — in ones and twos, the way water drains from a bath. Warren shook Dana's hand at the door and said, formally, "You did the right thing," and Dana nodded and didn't argue. Elena pressed a foil-covered plate of leftovers into her arms and said, "It'll keep in the freezer," and Maya wrote her phone number on a scrap of paper and said, "If you ever need someone to house-sit, I can start next summer."

Uncle Pete stayed.

He stayed because he'd been staying for a week, and because the porch chair had become his, and because the two of them had developed a rhythm that didn't need filling with words. They sat in the evenings, Dana in a folding chair, Uncle Pete in his, watching the lake turn from gold to grey to black while the loons called out over the water.

"I wanted to tell you," Uncle Pete said on the third evening after the reading. "When you first walked in the door and Carla told you to leave, I wanted to stand up and say, that's the house, Dana's the one who owns it, why are you doing this? But I didn't."

"I know."

"I thought — I thought maybe it would be better if you handled it your way. I thought it might be worse if I got in the middle."

"Pete." Dana leaned forward. "You got in the middle at exactly the right time. The note. The strongbox. You didn't know the box was under the floor —"

"I guessed."

"You guessed, and you told me. That was the moment that mattered." She looked at him. "You were the only person in that room who ever once said her name out loud with respect, and she didn't hear it the first time because the room was too loud, and she didn't hear it the second time because she was too far gone. But I heard it."

The loons called out over the dark water.

"I called my unit this morning," Dana said.