Phoebe emailed the closing documents a little after twelve.

The buyer was a technology executive relocating from San Francisco, and he wanted the house exactly as it stood, fully furnished, for five million two hundred thousand dollars, all cash, no financing to wait on, no inspection contingencies to negotiate.

The deed transfer would be recorded within seventy-two hours.

I read the number twice, and I felt almost nothing about it, which surprised me.

Five million dollars is a great deal of money, and I had put years of my life into the thing it was buying, and I found, sitting on my sister’s couch with my daughter asleep beside me, that I did not grieve it even slightly.