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if she had been around all these years, as she should have been, she would have known that.
    As if she could forget the perpetual sight of Maura, hunched at the table in the very spot where Molly is now sitting, clutching a steaming mug of the strong Irish brew.
    “I know Mom drinks tea,” Rory replies in an I’ve-known-Mom-longer-than-you-have tone.
    She instantly regrets it. She’s the adult here. Not a jealous kid sister . Not anymore.
    But for a moment there, Molly had sounded eerily like Carleen. And Rory had been a child again, trying not to let her big sister’s superior attitude get to her.
    “Carleen’s acting big again, Daddy. Tell her to stop.”
    “You can act big, too, Rory . . . just climb up on a chair and act big.”
    “Daddy! That’s not what I mean. It’s not fair that she always acts like she knows more than me and it’s not fair that she can do more stuff than I can.”
    “That’s because she’s the oldest, Rory.”
    “But that’s not fair. I wish I could be the oldest . . . Someday, will I get a turn to be the oldest?”
    “Don’t be silly, Rory. That’s impossible. Carleen is the oldest. That’s just how it works.”
    You were wrong, Daddy. My wish came true, Rory thinks grimly now . I’m the oldest. I have a responsibility to this family. Mostly to Molly. She needs me whether she knows it or not .
    “So there’s no coffeemaker anymore,” Rory says thoughtfully, looking around the kitchen.
    “There’s never been a coffeemaker. I told you, Mom doesn’t drink it.”
    But Daddy did, Rory tells her silently. You don’t remember that .
    Aloud, she says, “I guess I’ll have to buy one, then. I can do that in town. Do they still sell stuff like that at McShane’s?”
    Molly looks at her blankly.
    “The hardware store,” Rory says. “McShane’s.”
    “There’s a Home Depot on High Ridge Road.”
    “McShane’s is gone?”
    Then Rory realizes. Of course it must be gone. The owner, Hank McShane, had been an old man when she was a kid, and his only son, Doug, hadn’t wanted to take over the family business. He had become a cop instead. He was the detective who had worked on Carleen’s case.
    There it was again.
    “Where’s that Home Depot?” Rory asks, even though she heard Molly the first time.
    Her sister rolls her eyes as she repeats herself, and Rory says, “I don’t know if they sell small appliances, but they’ll have paint, and I needed to get some today anyway.”
    “Why?” Now Molly turns to look at her.
    “Because I’m going to paint the kitchen cupboards and trim.”
    “Why?”
    “Because . . . I mean, look around. It needs it.”
    “You can’t just show up here and take over. You can’t just go around painting stuff,” Molly tells her.
    “Somebody has to. This place is a wreck.”
    Molly says nothing, just turns back to her cereal and her magazine.
    “Want to come with me?” Rory asks, though she already knows the answer. “We can stop at that new little cafe on the way—the one where the Rainbow Palace used to be—”
    “Rainbow Palace?”
    “That’s probably before your time. It was a Chinese restaurant on Front Street, but it closed before I left for college.”
    “Well, the cafe’s not new. It’s been there, like, forever.”
    Not forever, Rory wants to say, but thinks better of quibbling. She recognizes Molly’s need to remind her that she hasn’t spent much time in Lake Charlotte these past few years.
    She goes on. “Anyway, 1 can get an espresso, and—”
    “Nope.”
    Just when Rory thinks her sister is going to leave her answer at that curt, single word, Molly adds grudgingly, “I have to meet someone.”
    “Oh.”
    Anyone I know? Rory almost asks. But she stops herself just in time. She doesn’t know Molly’s friends. She doesn’t know anything about her life.
    Silence falls between them.
    Molly’s spoon clinks against her bowl.
    She turns a page of her magazine so forcefully that it rips.
    Rory sighs.