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moving in.”
    “Where?” said her mother absently.
    “Here. Grandma’s house. I want to move in.”
    “It’s an old-lady apartment,” said Uncle Jeff.
    “Grandma lived here when she was a newlywed,” said Meredith. “She had little kids here. She had teenagers here.”
    “Lot of history,” said Dash. “Lot of memories.”
    “That’s a bad thing?”
    “Might be hard. Might be too heavy.”
    “Grandma would want me to live here,” said Meredith.
    “Lot of ugly furniture,” added Dash. It was true. Some of the furniture was ugly enough to resist even nostalgia.
    “I’d get rid of my place and pay you guys rent,” Meredith said to her mother and uncle.
    “Don’t be silly,” said Uncle Jeff. “You’re family. It’s yours as much as anyone’s. It’s not about the money.”
    “Grandma would want you to live here,” her mother acknowledged, “ if that’s what you want. But not if it’s going to make you sad and depressed and mopey. Not if it’s just because you can’t let go.”
    “I can’t let go,” said Meredith. “But that’s not why I want to stay.”

    Later that night, Jeff and Maddie went back to their hotel, and Kyle and Julia went back to Meredith’s, and Dash stayed at Sam’s, while Sam himself began unwrapping all of the carefully wrapped plates and cups and glasses and bowls and putting them back on the shelves where he found them. Meredith’s feeling was that her postcollege, mismatched, thrift-store china had nothing on her grandmother’s. Meredith’s feeling was that they belonged in these cabinets. Meredith’s feeling was, “That’s what my grandmother would say I should do.”
    “You always know what your grandmother would say,” said Sam.
    “I’ve known her all my life.”
    “But what about what you want?”
    “I want what she wants. Wanted. She wants what’s best for me, and that’s what I want as well.”
    “Me too,” said Sam. “How about I finish unpacking plates and stuff here, and you go home and pack up your stuff.”
    “I can start that tomorrow.”
    “Last night with Dash and your folks? Your aunt and uncle? Maybe you’d like to spend tonight with your family.”
    “I think you are my family,” Meredith said. And then she said, “You need to go home and pack too.”
    “Why?”
    “Move in here with me.”
    “What?”
    “Move in here with me.”
    “Oh, Merde, it’s way too soon.”
    “You wanted to move in before you left for London.”
    “I was kidding.”
    “You were not.”
    “I was … delirious with happiness.”
    “Emphasis on the happiness.”
    “Emphasis on the delirious.”
    “Your place is too small. My place is too … mine. This place is just right,” Meredith said. “Besides, my grandmother would say that you should stay.”
    “You think?”
    “I’m sure.”
    “Would she have liked me?”
    “Are you kidding? She would have loved you.”
    “What makes you think so?”
    “You’re smart. You’re funny. You’re a baseball fan. You make good popcorn. But mostly, you’re awfully kind to her granddaughter.”
    “I’m unemployed. Grandmothers hate the unemployed.”
    “Nice to her granddaughter would trump that. Trust me,” said Meredith.
    “I wish I knew her,” said Sam. “She seems like an amazing person.”
    “I can’t believe you never met her. I can’t believe you’ll never meet her.”
    “I’ll get to know her anyway.”
    “How?”
    “By living in her house,” said Sam. “By loving her granddaughter.”

    They finished packing and moving their own stuff into Livvie’s over the course of a couple weeks. But that first night after her family left, Meredith went home and untied all of her model airplanes. When Sam got back to their new apartment, he found clean sheets on the bed, two dogs in the kitchen, and hundreds of model airplanes hanging from the rafters. Then he and Meredith went into the bedroom to properly christen it as their own.
    Afterward, Sam watched the airplanes tracing