One by one the two women opened boxes and took out pieces of decoration, kitchen utensils, books and photo albums. Lynn gasped in admiration every time she or Blanche discovered something pretty; and the young woman found nearly all of Blanche's fancy things pretty.

"This one has to stand on the mantelpiece!" Lynn made a quick decision about an old Italian vase. "Right next to that stunning portrait of you in that silver-grey dress."

"I already told you, I will not have my picture up there. I'd feel so vain." Blanche made a displeased face.

But Lynn had gotten a lot braver since she'd been told Blanche was not about to dispose of her any time soon. "Of course you'll have it up there! It's not even up for discussion. It must be hung there. You'd be very selfish if you didn't let me see that beautiful picture up there all the time."

There were three men carrying in the furniture Blanche had decided to take with her from the old house. They grunted under the heavy liquor cabinet.

"Why would you have this thing brought in? You don't even drink."

"For company, Lynn. And I'm sure you're old enough to drink. I wouldn't mind, as long as you behaved responsibly."

At some point Blanche looked up form her boxful of needlework and knitting, and found Lynn engrossed in some old papers yellow with age. She realized that the girl had turned unnaturally quiet.

"What have you found?" she asked, causing Lynn to avert her eyes from the papers.

"I figured this is some of your sister's old sheet music." Lynn gathered up a bunch of papers, which Blanche could now see indeed had music written on them. "There's a boxful of them here. Are you going to keep them?"

Blanche could suddenly picture a very disappointed and displeased Jane stomping her foot in the middle of the new sunlit living room. She shook her head to escape the vision. "Yes. Jane would want me to. You said there was a small basement, didn't you? You could take them there."

Lynn's face took on an expression of hurt bewilderment. "Don't you want to use them?" she enquired.

Blanche shook her head quickly as the memory of that one time she'd tried to sing and dance like Jane did threatened to emerge from the blur of her childhood memories. "I don't sing. And especially not Jane's songs."

She saw disappointment settling into Lynn's features as she set the sheet music back into the box. For a while she seemed completely stricken, but Blanche didn't know any way to help make her feel better.

"The piano..." Lynn soon muttered, and turned her eyes to Blanche again. The actress was surprised to see an excited glint in them again. "What were you planning to do with the piano?"

Unmoved by the question but curious about the origin of Lynn's excitement, Blanche said, "I don't know. I guess I'll have to sell it. There's no use bringing it here, is there?"

To her shock, Lynn jumped up and dashed forward, bringing her hands together in front of her. "Oh, please, let them bring it here!" she breathed feverishly.

Blanche stared at the hectic girl in perplexity. "I didn't know you could play," she said blankly. "I've hard you humming a tune or two, but I didn't know you enjoyed music that much."

"I can't play very well," Lynn admitted, settling down again but with the excitement not once leaving her face or tone. "But a piano in the house makes it feel so much more like a home. And I could learn new songs with it—Jane's songs, if you wouldn't mind. I could sing to you if you wanted. Although I don't even know if you like music."

Opening a box filled with records, Blanche smiled. "How could I not?"

And so the piano was brought over into the large living room of the new house and Blanche's portrait was hung above the mantelpiece.

"Bert said he'd found a good buyer for the house. Soon it will finally be out of my life for good."

"Had you wanted to leave for a long time?" Lynn asked, pouring herself and Blanche some more peppermint tea—a favourite of both of theirs, she had discovered.

"I should have left right after the accident," Blanche admitted. "I know that now. But I couldn't. I thought I needed that house to remember all the good things I'd had in life. It was just before Jane got worse that I'd finally realized I'd been wrong the entire time. The house wasn't making me feel any better. I decided then that it was time to move on, to make a new life for myself, and allow Jane to have one. But then she got worse."

Blanche drowned her next words in her cup of tea, irritated at herself for having said just what she'd been thinking without considering her words. All this packing and unpacking, going through old things was making her remember everything, think about everything—her life before the accident, her rotten childhood, Jane. Lynn was being unnaturally quiet. She must have understood how hard it was for Blanche to revisit the past.

"I don't even want to go back to Hillside Terrace and see the old place again. But I do want to see Pauline and her garden for one more time. She's promised to keep in touch, but it's hard for me to imagine her apart from that dear garden of hers."

Blanche wheeled herself through the gallery and past the sofas in the living room, glancing over to her right to find Lynn seated idly at the kitchen table. At the sight of the actress the young woman jumped to her feet.

"Why are you all dressed up, Lynn?" Blanche asked casually, pulling on her small white fur coat.

Lynn made a surprised face. "You said we were going to Miss Jane's sanatorium, didn't you?"

Blanche looked over to her with a kind of gentle resolution. "No," she explained. "I'm going to Jane's sanatorium. Alone."

"But… I'm coming with you!" Lynn protested hastily, coming forward.

"No, you're not." There was a certain softness to her tone, but she spoke unwaveringly. "This is something I have to do alone. Besides," she added gently, "that's no place for a young woman like you."

Seeing that Lynn was about to protest again, Blanche intervened first. "I will be back for lunch. I'll probably be tired and upset, so I'll need someone to welcome me back home."

The sound of a car approaching caught Blanche's ears, and she looked up expectantly. "That should be my taxi. Will you take me out there?"