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every sneeze unless you put down carpets.”
    I assured Harriet I was very quiet. With unemployment staring me in the face, I wasn’t looking for any investments that weren’t
     absolutely required. For the same reason, I told her not to worry about the houndstooth couch Ms. Gramercy’s heirs had failed
     to carry away. Harriet visibly shuddered, and told me Marge’s niece had found her
lying
on that sofa.
    “Don’t that bother you?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. I’ve never owned anything that belonged to a dead person.” Which technically was true: everything I ever had
     from dead people was given to me before they died. Besides, I’d lost my faith in ghosts, so there didn’t seem much to fear
     except the chance that the couch would bring bad luck. And since Ms. Gramercy had made it to eighty-six, working to the end,
     I figured I had some leeway in that department. It was her luck, for better or worse, that I hoped to inherit.
    “She did her darkroom stuff in here, if you can imagine.” Harriet swung open the door to the bathroom, a windowless cube only
     slightly larger than the kitchen: more maximized spatial efficiency. The sink was originally freestanding, but a sheet of
     plywood had been cut to fit around it as a counter extending over the tub. Crammed into the corner between the bath and toilet
     was a sky-blue shower with plastic walls.
    “I’ll take it—” I turned back to Harriet. “I’m a photographer, too.”
    “Oh, I see.” She peered at me as if this new detail made a difference. “Hobby, huh?”
    A faint odor, minty camphor or liniment, hung over the bathroom. I fingered the locket at my throat. I looked old and tired
     in the mirror in here, but the overhead light caught the gold heart just right and made it shine like new. Another sign?
    Harriet shook her head. “Y’ don’t want to end up like her.”
    “Like how?”
    “Poor Marge, broke her hip when she was seventy-eight. Slipped on the fire escape one day when she was out watchin’ them kids.”
     She jerked her head toward the closed window and the children who, despite the cold, were playing in the schoolyard. “After
     that, her traveling days was over. It’s no fun getting old, but I guess you know, your parents and all—”
    “What did she do then?”
    Harriet folded her arms, tight across her chest. “Oh, Marge had chutzpah. Got some catalog company to hire her. They sent
     their little gadgets by UPS and she took the pictures right here.”
    I turned on the water. It ran rusty, but gradually cleared, dissolving my portraits of Himalayan peaks into eight-by-ten product
     shots.
    “Gadgets.”
    “Yeah, like those slice ‘n’ dice gizmos you see on TV She hardly had to leave the building. Real lucky stroke for old Marge.”
    “Real lucky.”
    I surveyed the main room again. Not hard to imagine how she’d done it. Some backdrop paper against the far wall, strobe, reflectors,
     a few stands for the little inventions. Gadgets like my father’s, no doubt. All simple tripod work. And no traveling. No flying.
    “Where was this company she worked for?”
    “Florida, I think. Return address in Pensacola, that sound right?”
    I stubbed my toe on the couch. “Pensacola?”
    But she nodded. “You know Pensacola?”
    I stepped on the toe to stop its throbbing and steadied myself by fixing on Harriet’s opaque brown eyes. “I’ll take the apartment.”
    Harriet squinted and pursed her lips, and I sensed her searching for my imbalance. Incredibly, she must not have found it
     because we shook on the deal. Her grip was firm, efficient. When she released my hand, it stayed in midair as if waiting for
     further instructions.
    “Harriet?” I asked as she moved out into the hallway. “Was there a memorial service for Marge?”
    “Not that I know. Most her relatives live in Detroit.” An eerie wail lifted up the stairwell. “Never mind that,” Harriet said
     quickly. “That’s Mother. Prob’ly needs her