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possibility of leaving her little house on Burlington Avenue, let alone allow someone to come in and care for her; but Joan knew that all Phyllis and her friends would remember was that she’d left her mother alone, and the house had caught fire.
    She offered Phyllis a smile that feigned more warmth than she felt. “You know my mother,” she replied. “She’s always been independent, and obviously she was able to get help before the fire got out of control.”
    Phyllis smiled thinly. “I suppose God looks out for those who have no one else.” Her eyes bored into Joan’s. “Will you be putting her somewhere?”
    “She’ll be with us,” Joan replied. “At least for a while.”
    The other woman’s expression hardened. “Well, at least you and Bill are in a position to be able to do what you want.”
    So there it is, Joan thought. Leave it to Phyllis to assume that enough money can solve everything. But instead of rising to the bait, she reminded herself that Phyllis had undoubtedly been drinking most of the afternoon, and was now probably feeling even more sorry for herself than she did when she was sober. Joan made herself smile again. “I’m just glad we can take her in,” she replied evenly.
    Before Phyllis could say anything else, Joan mounted the steps leading to her mother’s front door and went into the house, with Matt right behind her.
    “What’s with Mrs. Adams?” her son asked. “Why’s she mad at you? Or is she already drunk?”
    “I think she’s just mad at the world,” Joan replied, answering Matt’s first question but ignoring his second. “She resents anyone who she thinks is a little better off than she is.” Her nostrils filled with the acrid smell of smoke as she quickly scanned the living room and dining room of the little house. Though everything looked exactly as it always had, the house somehow felt different.
    The fire, she thought. It’s just the smell of the fire.
    But it was more than that, for as she closed the front door behind her and moved farther into the house, the strange sensation grew stronger.
    Behind her, Matt echoed the feelings she hadn’t yet voiced: “This is weird. It’s like the house knows Gram’s not coming back.”
    As Joan’s eyes took in the living room — its tables covered with the cheap china figurines her mother had been collecting since she and Cynthia had been children — Matt once again gave voice to what she was thinking.
    “What are we going to do with all her stuff? Move it into our house?”
    Joan heard a note of anxiety in his voice, and her mind went back ten years to the time when she and Matt had been living here in this house, before she married Bill Hapgood.
    She could still remember her mother chiding Matt as his small fingers reached out to the china collie dog that lay on the floor under the end table. “Don’t touch that!” she’d said. “That’s very valuable, and not for children.” Matt jerked his hand away as quickly as if he’d touched a hot stove, and her mother had turned on Joan herself. “Can’t you control your brat? If you didn’t know how to raise him, you shouldn’t have had him in the first place!”
    Even years later the words still stung her, and though she hoped that Matt had blocked them from his own memory, the way he was staring at the porcelain dog told her that he had not.
    “I suppose we’ll have to take some of it,” Joan said, already dreading the task of sorting through the scores of figurines her mother had crammed into the house over the years. Nor would it matter how careful she was, or how hard she tried to choose her mother’s favorites. Whatever she did, it would be wrong. “But we won’t take any of them right now,” she decided. “We’ll just get a few of her clothes, and I’ll bring her over tomorrow to start going through everything.”
    Matt’s gaze shifted from the collie to his mother. “Gram’s going to live with us from now on, isn’t she?” Despite the