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She hopped up to yell down the stairs. “Is that bacon?”

“Yes!” came a chorus of voices.

Cam padded into the kitchen to find her cousin, grandmother, and Izzy preparing breakfast.

“But I said I would make brunch for us,” Cam protested. “I was going to make a frittata.”

“And we decided that you needed a break and that we could handle things just fine,” Avery informed her.

“Bacon and eggs and toast,” Birdie said. “It might not get us four stars or, heck, even one, but that’s just fine.”

“And I’m making roasted zucchini and mint!” Izzy crowed. Apparently, she had gotten over her snit about Ada the night before. “Just like you showed me.” She went to the oven and opened it triumphantly, only to release a wave of acrid smoke and reveal a pan of charred vegetables.

Cam sighed.

“Don’t worry about that for now. Your job is to drink this.” Avery handed Cam a chipped mug of coffee. “And later this.” She opened the refrigerator to show her a chilling bottle of champagne.

“Upstairs,” Birdie commanded. “Shower.”

“Okay, okay,” Cam said, considering for a moment resisting her cousin and grandmother and insisting that she whip up her egg dish. It would only take a few minutes, and the morel mushroom sauté she had planned would be so good with just a pinch of tarragon and loads of cracked black pepper. Or she could stop and give Izzy another lesson on the finer points of roasting vegetables. But a look at Birdie’s determined expression convinced her otherwise. “I guess I’ll just shower, then.”

Before she turned to take her mug upstairs, she paused and offered her cousin her hand. “How are you doing?” she asked. Cam had been meaning to check in on Avery, but she had been so distracted that she hadn’t had a moment to sit down with her and ask. “I mean really?”

“Okay, I guess.” Avery gave her a half-smile. “I think it’s helped, just being back here with you and Birdie.”

“And our ghost?” Cam asked.

“Yeah, Ada, too,” Avery said, her half-smile looking a little less forced. “Hey, I’m going to have a surprise for you soon.”

A month ago, the prospect of a surprise would have unnerved Cam. Usually, she liked to know what was coming. But so much had happened in the last few weeks that she hadn’t seen coming in a million years, and somehow she was still standing. They all were, she thought, looking from Avery to Birdie to Izzy. Even the house was coming back to life around them, day by day. They weren’t perfect, but they were all trying, together.

“Sounds good,” Cam said, turning to head up the stairs.

“Wait, you’re not even going to ask for a hint?” Avery looked incredulous. “Who are you, and what have you done with my cousin Cam?”

“I’m sure it’s going to be great,” she answered, offering a serene wave. Avery just needed time to heal. It was just like anything—a cake baking in an oven, a marinade working its magic, or a heart mending—everything just needed time.

Cam headed upstairs and started the tap. Birdie’s old pipes took forever to warm up, and when she finally stepped into the hot water, she exhaled. So this is what letting go feels like. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought.

An hour later, clean, showered, and caffeinated, Cam felt like a new person. She went down to the kitchen where Avery had exchanged Cam’s empty coffee mug for a flute of mimosa.

“You can just hang out while we finish up,” her cousin informed her. “Put your feet up and enjoy. You deserve a break after working so hard last night.”

“I’m tablescaping,” Izzy proclaimed as she folded a stack of napkins. “I taught Birdie that word. She says it’s the most important job in the kitchen.”

Cam smiled. Leave it to Birdie to use the same tactics she had always used on her students to get them to do chores to convince a pouty, thirtysomething celebrity to pitch in.

Feeling a little aimless—she usually had a task to do in the kitchen—Cam pulled Ada’s cookbook out from the drawer where she had been keeping it and settled in at the kitchen table. The scent of butter browning in a cast-iron pan swirled around her as she sipped the citrusy bubbles. She hadn’t felt so relaxed in a long time. She idly turned the pages of the book, admiring anew the whimsical drawings, each illustrating a letter that started each chapter. She wondered again why Ada had chosen to organize the recipes the way she had. Which was to say, to seemingly not organize them at all. Appetizers were jumbled up with desserts, soups mingled with side dishes—there seemed to be no logic to the arrangement. Maybe that was just part of Ada’s unpredictable charm? Cam paged through, focusing on those letters at the start of each chapter.

Suddenly, a thought took hold. “Avery, can you hand me a pen and paper?” Cam asked abruptly.

“Sure thing, Summer Sister,” Avery said, rooting around in a couple of drawers and finally handing Cam a stubby pencil and a pad of paper with cartoon chickens and lettering at the top marking it as Grocery Lists.

“Thanks,” Cam said absently, her attention focused on the pages. She turned them as quickly as she could without tearing them, writing down the letter of each chapter heading in order.

“What’s that?” Birdie came to peek over her shoulder. Avery, clearly intrigued, joined her cousin’s other side. Izzy just sniffed. She was obviously still annoyed with Ada.

“I think the letters might spell something out,” Cam said, flipping and writing, her heart almost racing, the champagne glass forgotten by her elbow. “Hang on…”