About this story
The Brandon house comes stocked with sea chests and a locked escritoire holding a dead aunt's private life: a black-ribboned packet marking a friend's death, a brother's crucifix from a voyage he never returned from. By lamplight you and Kate turn the packet over, unopened, deciding whether curiosity should win over keeping faith with the dead.
How it opens
A winter morning in Boston began with dread that had no event to explain it.
Helen, promise to hear my plan before ordinary sense rejects it.
Her great-aunt Katharine had died, leaving Kate's mother an old house by the Maine sea.
Aunt MaryAn inherited house can demand more attention than property in daily use.
Spend the summer with me in Deephaven, where nobody expects a season.
Choose
Yes, provided we keep house ourselves instead of becoming guests.
Tell me what remains in a house closed around one old life.