Saint Kenny the Rototiller, Tess thought wryly as she clumped upstairs.

Mary yelled, "And did you see my new garage door? He installed that for me, too."

Tess stopped in her tracks, resting the duffel bag on the step at her knee. The nerd installed the garage door, too? What was he after?

The upper story of the house was laid out shotgun style, its ceiling shaped like the roofline with a window at either end. The girls had called it "the barracks" when they were growing up, sleeping in three single beds whose headboards were pushed into the south roof angle. The stairs emerged onto the east end of the expanse with only a sturdy homemade railing to keep anyone from falling off the floor above. Straight ahead, at the top of the steps, was a window giving a bird's-eye view of Saint Kenny's yard. Tess whisked past it without giving it so much as a glance, executed a U-turn around the handrail and looked down the length of the room.

The beds hunkered along the left with a stack of drawers beside each one. On the far end a small dressing table stood beneath the window, and on the right, kneehole closets filled the space beneath the eaves. She dropped her duffel on the farthest bed. They had earned their distance from the stairs by birth order; closest to the stairs and the downstairs bathroom was the oldest, Judy; middle bed was Renee's, and way over at the farthest end was Tess's, because she was the baby. She had always hated being referred to as the baby of the family, and felt a ripple of smug satisfaction at being the one who went off and did the best.

She stood looking around, then wandered to the dressing table where she had first written in her diary that she wanted to be a singer; where she had learned to put on makeup from Renee; and had sat staring out at the street with a puckered mouth when she'd been sent to her room as punishment. For what? It was hard to remember now, but there had been times. Times when she'd needed it, she supposed.