A widowed businessman returns early to his quiet mansion, ready to confront the housekeeper, but what he sees changes everything

said it first.”

She laughed — a real laugh, sudden and unguarded — and the sound of it in that hallway was, Owen thought, one of the better sounds the house had held in a long time.

Part Six: Elaine

Happiness, Owen had learned, does not arrive and then remain unchanged. It requires tending. It exists in a world that has opinions about it, and those opinions continue reading …