The tax receipt was still safe inside my canvas bag on Friday morning when Victoria carried a heavy silver tea tray into the main living room.

She set the tray on the low mahogany coffee table and smoothed her cream silk skirt with both hands.

“I poured Earl Grey for us,” Victoria said, setting a porcelain cup on a saucer and sliding it across the wood.

“I was thinking about your father late last night, Avery.”

I didn’t reach for the teacup.

Chloe sat at the far end of the velvet sofa, tapping her nails on her phone screen while pretending to look at a magazine.

“We’ve been so scattered since Walter passed,” Victoria said, her voice softening into a gentle, musical tone I hadn’t heard in ten years.