By two in the afternoon, the kitchen smelled of vinegar and lemon oil. Melissa was standing by the sink, scraping the crumbs off the butcher block counter with a red plastic spatula. Her gold watch ticked softly against her wrist, the polished metal catching the gray winter light from the window.
On the kitchen table, the ceramic Christmas angel with the repaired left wing sat near the salt shaker. The glue James had used to fix the break twenty-seven years ago had turned the color of old pine sap, a dark yellow line running right through the porcelain feathers. I had set it there after wiping the mantle, its small painted face looking blankly at the wall.
“Ruth, dear,” Melissa said, her voice bright and polished as she turned from the sink. “I was looking through the drawer by the telephone for the manual for the double oven. Have you ever found any old blueprints of the house?”
I paused near the pantry door, my hand resting on the handle. “Blueprints?”
“Just to see where the support beams run,” she said, adjusting her watch strap with a quick, practiced flick of her fingers. “For when we start the structural updates. It’s such a lovely old place, but these thick plaster walls make it so hard to plan anything.”
