She had put effort into making it a living space rather than a shrine. She grew geraniums in the front beds every spring, starting them from seed and setting them out when the last frost was reliably past. She replaced the front door mat when it wore out rather than keeping it for sentiment. She had learned to make the kind of clam chowder that the woman at the fish counter taught her, thick and briny and finished with a piece of good butter, and she made it every first Friday of October without exception. The house worked because Eleanor kept working at it. She understood this in a way that required no announcement.

Robert had once understood it too.