Of course, now I owned it. I’d never owned something that big before.

I was independent of my mother, too. I could’ve made it by myself on my librarian’s salary, though it would have been hard, but having the resident manager’s job and therefore a free place to live and a little extra salary had certainly made a big difference.

I’d woken several times during the night and thought about living in Jane’s house. My house. Or after probate I could sell it and buy elsewhere.

That morning, starting up my car to drive to Honor Street, the world was so full of possibilities it was just plain terrifying, in a happy roller-coaster way.

Jane’s house was in one of the older residential neighborhoods. The streets were named for virtues. One reached Honor by way of Faith. Honor was a dead end, and Jane’s house was the second from the corner on the right side. The houses in this neighborhood tended to be small-two or three bedrooms-with meticulously kept little yards dominated by large trees circled with flower beds. Jane’s front yard was half filled by a live oak on the right side that shaded the bay window in the living room. The driveway ran in on the left, and there was a deep single-car carport attached to the house. A door in the rear of the carport told me there was some kind of storage room there. The kitchen door opened onto the carport, or you could (as I’d done as a visitor) park in the driveway and take the curving sidewalk to the front door. The house was white, like all the others on the street, and there were azalea bushes planted all around the foundation; it would be lovely in spring.

The marigolds Jane had planted around her mailbox had died from lack of water, I saw as I got out of the car. Somehow that little detail sobered me up completely. The hands that had planted those withered yellow flowers were now six feet underground and idle forever.