When I opened the door, Clara Sterling was standing on the wooden porch holding a fan of thick paper paint swatches.

She wore a tailored charcoal wool coat and two large emerald rings on her right hand that caught the pale afternoon light.

“Julian asked me to drop these off for the nursery,” she said, stepping past me into the entryway before I could offer to take them.

“The cream paint you have now is far too drab for a modern family home.”

Julian came down the hallway from his home office, wiping his hands on a paper towel.