PROLOGUE

      I was actually standing on the edge of my mother’s open grave when I heard about the house. Some idiot with tattoos and a shovel had tossed a huge wad of dirt at me. I think he was more or less perturbed that everyone else had taken off the way they’re supposed to and then there I was just standing there like someone had brained me with a frying pan. It’s not like I was making a scene. But I couldn’t go. The service in the little chapel had totally blown, all that little deacon or whatever he was talked about was God and his mercy and utter unredeemable nonsense that had nothing to do with her so I was just standing there and thinking maybe there was something else that could be said while they put her in the earth, something simple but hopefully specific. Which is when Lucy came up and yanked at my arm.

      “Come on,” she said. “We have to talk about the house.”

      And I’m thinking, what house?

      So Lucy drags me off to talk about this house, which she and Daniel and Alison clearly had already been deep in conversation about for a while, even though I had never heard of it. Which maybe I might resent? Especially as Daniel obviously has an interest but no real rights, as he is only Alison’s husband? But I’m way too busy trying to catch up and get something resembling a shred of information out of them all while we crawl to Manhattan from Hoboken through the Holland Tunnel.

      This is what the conversation is like, in the crummy old beige Honda that Daniel insists on driving because even though the thing is ugly it still works:

      “The lawyer says that it’s completely unencumbered. She died intestate, and that means it’s ours, that’s what the lawyer says.” This from Lucy.

      “What lawyer?” I ask.

      “Mom’s lawyer,” she says.

      “I have a hard time believing that that is true,” Daniel says.

      “Why would he lie?” Lucy shoots back at him.

      “Why would a lawyer lie? I’m sorry, did you just say—”

      “Yes I did. He’s our lawyer. Why would he lie?”

      “You just said he was Mom’s lawyer,” I point out.

      “It’s the same thing,” she tells me.

      “Really?” I say. “I’ve never even heard of this guy, and I don’t know his name,