“We’ll have tea.

I won’t discuss Dad’s debts, and I won’t be asked to sign anything.”

“I understand.”

She arrived carrying a lemon cake in a paper box.

Buster inspected her shoes and then wandered off, apparently unimpressed.

My mother stood in the doorway, uncertain whether to remove her coat.

“Come in,” I said.

We sat in the small kitchen near Annapolis, not the house she’d once insisted was an embarrassment because it had an aging roof and an uneven path.