The house had begun to shrink as soon as they decided to sell it.
Mara noticed while trying to get the large fir table through the dining room door. For thirty-nine years, that table had seemed immovable, as natural as the slope behind the house or the dark line of spruce around the lake. Now, stripped of its oilcloth, it struck the doorframe and refused to become something transportable.
“Lift your end,” Helen said.
“I’m lifting.”
“No. You’re pulling.”
“Mom, if I lift any higher, I’ll go over it.”
Helen let go. The tabletop dropped a centimeter with a dull sound that rattled the glasses in the sideboard. She pushed a gray strand beneath the wool hat she had not removed despite the stove’s dry heat.
“Then we leave it for the buyers.”
“They’re not buying the furniture.”
“They’re buying your father’s house. If they want your father’s table, they can deal with it.”
He had been dead only eleven days, and Helen was already saying “your father” the way she had throughout the twenty years since their divorce: a man whose family ties ran in only one direction.
Mara righted the table and looked at the paler mark it left on the floor. Outside, November daylight flattened against the windows. Raven Lake was not entirely frozen yet. A dull skin of ice advanced from the coves, leaving black water at the center that the wind barely wrinkled. At this time of year, the light always seemed about to leave before it had really begun.
“The photographer comes at four,” Mara said. “If we can’t get the table out, we at least need to clear the room.”
“She can photograph the mess. It’s honest.”
“That’s not how you sell a house.”
Helen gave her the look she once reserved for institutions, uniformed men, and recipes that claimed to distinguish a tablespoon from a reasonable amount.
“You sound like the real estate agent.”
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