"Come in," Ruth said. "The coffee is from this morning. It has not improved."
They sat in the kitchen. Helen wrapped her hands around the blue cup and noticed, with a pang that was almost comic, that Ruth had given her Evelyn's color. "I am not going to sue. I burned the page we signed. Mark knows. I was unkind about you in this house more than once, in sentences that called you a friend and meant a risk. I am sorry. The sorry doesn't restore anything. It is only true."
Ruth studied her. "Your mother said you love by contesting. Not contesting is a love letter in your dialect. I'll take it. I won't gush. Gushing would scare us both." She turned the cup. "I am keeping the house. Lydia is going to rent the back room and the use of the kitchen, a number we wrote down so it doesn't become a mood. You are welcome here as her sister and as Evelyn's daughter. You are not welcome here as an inspector. If those two arrive in the same body, we will pause until they separate."
"That is fair," Helen said. She looked at the rail by the back door, at the peaches, at the clock. "She asked you not to move the cups. You didn't."