Nina was nine when I finished it.

She stood in front of it in the kitchen and looked at it for a long time with her hands behind her back, the way I look at things.

“Is that you, Mom?”

“I think it might be.”

“Why isn’t she looking back at the house?”

And I stood there in a rented kitchen with a nine-year-old and gave the truest answer I had:

“Because she already learned everything that was in there.”