“You don’t own a single nail in this house anymore, Mara.”

“And what about my mother’s hand-painted tea set?” I asked.

“If it was in this house when Frank died, it belongs to the estate,” Gene said, checking his watch again.

“The formal estate appraisal starts at noon.”

He stepped back into the front hall and pulled the door shut before I could grab the handle.

Through the glass side panel I watched him slide a heavy brass padlock through two iron eyelets he’d screwed into the trim of the hall closet.

One of the movers came out with a taped cardboard box labeled Childhood Records and tossed it onto the wooden floor of the truck bed.