"Cat, then." I glance past her toward the lit-up house. "You've been here a while, I take it?"
"A week." She folds her arms across her chest, a gesture that's probably supposed to be casual but reads as defensive. "The lawyer said the will couldn't be read until we were both here, but he didn't say I couldn't come early."
A week. She's been here for a week, alone in my grandmother's house, cooking in my grandmother's kitchen, sleeping in my grandmother's beds. Something hot and unpleasant curls in my stomach.
"I would have come sooner," I say, keeping my voice carefully neutral. "But I had to arrange things. I have a job in Chicago."
"Had a job in London." Cat shrugs. "Didn't seem that important once I got the call."
The implication hangs between us: I cared enough to drop everything. Did you?
I let it hang. I'm too tired for this particular fight right now.
"Is there somewhere I can put my things?" I ask instead. "It's been a very long day."
Something flickers across Cat's face—surprise, maybe, or disappointment that I won't engage. She steps back from the terrace doorway, gesturing me inside.
"Welcome to the Domaine des Lavandes."
The inside of the farmhouse is exactly what I would have imagined if I'd let myself imagine it, which I carefully haven't for the past thirty-two years.
Stone floors worn smooth by generations of footsteps. Exposed wooden beams across the ceiling. Furniture that looks antique because it is antique, collected over decades, maybe centuries. Bookshelves overflowing with paperbacks in three languages. And paintings—beautiful paintings, landscapes and flowers and one striking portrait of a woman I don't recognize, all signed with the same initials.
H.V.
Another question for the pile. The pile is becoming structural.
"Kitchen's through there." Cat has followed me inside, and she's watching me look around with an expression I can't quite read. "I made pasta earlier—there's some left if you're hungry."
"I ate on the plane."
"Plane food doesn't count as eating."
I turn to look at her. She's leaning against the doorframe to the kitchen, arms still crossed, chin slightly lifted. There's a challenge in the set of her shoulders that has nothing to do with pasta.
"The bedrooms," I say. "Which one should I take?"
"There are two down the hall. I've been using the one on the right—it's got the better mattress. The one on the left is nice, though. Big windows, looks out over the lavender."
The one on the left. The not-as-good bedroom. Of course.
"And my grandmother's room?"
"Locked." Cat's voice is flat. "The lawyer said it stays locked until the will is read. Part of the conditions, apparently."
"Conditions." I think of what Monsieur Duval said on the phone—living arrangements, stipulations. "Has he told you what those are?"
"Not yet. We're meeting with him tomorrow at ten." She pauses. "Together."
Together. The word sits between us like a test.
"Fine," I say. "I'll see you in the morning, then."
I turn toward the door, but Cat's voice stops me.
"She talked about you, you know."
I freeze, my hand on the handle. "What?"
