Melissa’s fingers, tipped in perfect shell-pink polish, hovered over the silver frame on my mantelpiece. She slid my wedding photograph three inches to the left, leaving a pale, rectangular patch of dust on the dark cherry wood.
“I prefer it in the center,” I said.
My voice was quieter than I intended, the habit of thirty-two years in this house asserting itself in the soft morning light. I reached out and touched my wedding ring, rotating the band twice around my knuckle.
Melissa did not look at me. She adjusted the heavy gold link strap of her watch, her thumb rubbing the bezel with a slow, deliberate motion.
“The room needs better light, Ruth,” she said, her voice bright and polished. “If we clear the clutter from this corner, the sun from the bay window can actually reach the armchair.”
She picked up the ceramic Christmas angel sitting next to the frame. It was a delicate thing, its left wing showing the faint yellow line where James had glued it back together with epoxy the winter before he died.
“Please put that down,” I said.
Melissa smiled, her eyes perfectly still, and set the angel back on the wood with a sharp click.
“Of course,” she said. “We just want this Christmas to be the one where we finally become one family.”
She swept her eyes over the high baseboards, her gaze lingering on the corner where the oak met the plaster.
“I noticed some dust along the trim,” she added, her fingers tracing the edge of the wood. “I might do a deep clean while Daniel is at school tomorrow.”
“The woodwork is delicate,” I said. “I handle the cleaning myself.”
She nodded once, her smile never reaching her eyes, and stepped away from the mantel.
Daniel arrived at two o’clock to help move some storage boxes from the attic, but Melissa had already gone to the grocery store. I stood in the kitchen pantry, staring at the shelves she had reorganized while I was out.
“She moved the spices,” I told Daniel. “The basil is where the baking soda belongs, and she threw away my canning jars.”
