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I return to Hank, who’s still on his call. “I approve, man,” he says, pacing the hardwood floorboards, his voice booming around the empty room. “Way to actionize the opportunity.”

I gravitate toward the windows. As if a little sunlight could thaw the chill in my heart.

“Maybe we can sync up next week.” Hank’s gleaming loafers move into my peripheral vision. “I’m not sure there’s a use case, but I’m willing to be convinced. I’ll need more granularity.”

And I’ll need a drink if I have to listen to this much longer.

“Later, man.” He finally disconnects. “Sorry, Rowan. Now where were we?”

“We were admiring the conservators’ work on these wall paintings and trying to come up with a suitable floor plan.”

He shrugs. “Find a spot for the assistant in here somewhere. You’ll figure it out,” he says, turning back to the painting. “Are the murals this elaborate in every room on this floor?”

“Probably,” I say, because it sounds better than I don’t know because I left my crystal ball at home, and I’m having a terrible week . And I smile, because I fought for this job.

“Does that imply more changes to the schedule, and the budget?”

“Possibly, but the surprises are almost over.” At least I pray they are . “Spot tests of the third-floor walls haven’t revealed any paintings. And the servants’ quarters should be clear. So here’s my latest budget summary.” I hand him the folder I’ve been carrying around just for this purpose.

He takes it and begins to flip through the pages, his frown deepening. “Not loving these numbers. Why did the elevator cost go up?”

It takes me a second to react, because I’m not expecting him to be so intimately familiar with every line item in the budget. “We needed to make the elevator car six inches wider to comply with a local ordinance.”

“And the custom carpentry? Aren’t we done with that?”

“You’d think. But let me show you something.” I walk out to the gallery and proceed up the staircase that leads to the third floor, with Hank on my heels. “Okay, stand here. Put your hand on the banister.”

Hank is taller than me, and he has to bend a little just to reach it. “It’s too low?”

“Six inches shorter than code. Which is a real pain in my backside, because these balusters”—I point at the wooden supports—“were hand-turned from walnut. And replacing them will not be cheap.”

His jaw ticks, and my heart quavers. I’ve spent the week anxious about my personal life when I should have been worrying about job security instead.

Hank closes the folder and lifts steely blue eyes to mine. I feel a bone-deep certainty that he’s about to replace me with someone who’s willing to chop paintings in half and cut corners.

Then he hands my folder back. “Okay, well. It’s better than someone going over the railing. Keep plugging. But find me some good news, okay? Before our Phase Two budget meeting?”

“I’ll sure try,” I croak. The meeting is only a week away.

Done with me, Hank turns and heads downstairs, his shoes tapping on the treads. I practically sag with relief when I hear Beatrice’s voice echo from the atrium. Even though I’m the architect, and more senior than the project manager, Beatrice has worked for him for years.

The truth is that Beatrice is better at managing Hank. Better at flattering him and getting him to approve her ideas. It’s a real skill.

There’s no telling how much longer Hank will put up with overruns and delays. And I’ve been spending too much energy on the wrong things. Like my first real boyfriend in fifteen years. Who just dumped me.

I’m a hot mess.

Stalling, I find a few things to keep me busy on the second floor, at least until I see Hank walk out to his car ten minutes later. Then I head back to our office, where Beatrice has flung herself into her desk chair. “It’s almost quitting time. Praise Jesus.”

“Rough meeting?”

She frowns. “I’ve had worse. But it’s been months , and Hank is still leaning on me for things his new assistant should be doing. Swear to God, he just asked me to order the right kind of ink for his fountain pen. That is not my job anymore. But he says the new girl can’t find it.” She rolls her sea-blue eyes.

Maybe I’m a traitor to the sisterhood for thinking this, but it’s possible that Beatrice is just too pretty for Hank to take her seriously.

She told me that she’s gunning for the directorship of the new Maritime Center—a major promotion—but I worry she’s in for a rude awakening. Whenever Hank and I discuss that office upstairs, Hank always refers to the director as him . My hunch is that Hank pictures someone like himself for the directorship—a prominent Mainer with deep ties to the country club set.

But it’s really none of my business.

“I’m going to need a drink after work,” Beatrice says now. “Join me? For full disclosure, though, your calendar says book club .”

“Oh right,” I murmur. “That’s tonight.”

She gives me a plaintive look. “You suffered through that book, so you might as well enjoy the white wine and gossip. Don’t sit home alone and mope about your ex.”

“I’m going. Promise. And I don’t mope. I seethe .”

Beatrice has a beautiful laugh, like bells ringing. “Hey, I appreciate the difference. That guy was too old for you anyway. He was a bore.”

Beatrice only met him once, and the age thing isn’t really true. Tim is forty-five, but I’m almost forty myself. Anyway, I’m not ready to be rational about Tim. It’s only been four days since he ended things. “You’re not helping. Who wants to be dumped by a bore?”

She spins her chair around in a complete rotation. “I’m just saying, you can do better.”

Can I, though? Tim’s quiet personality was a feature, not a bug. He’s a grownup, with a real job and good habits. We ate out together. We went running together. And when he accidentally left something in my bathroom, it was a pair of cuff links, not a bong, like my ex used to leave lying around.

My other ex, that is.

I thought dating a wearer of cuff links was a safe choice. But it wasn’t. Monday night he dumped me via a callous text message, and by Tuesday night he’d started dating someone else.

Not that I’m supposed to know that.

“What are you up to tonight?” I ask Beatrice, changing the topic.

“A cocktail mixer for the symphony orchestra.” She shrugs one tanned shoulder. “You’re always welcome to join me.”

“Sounds fun, but I’ve got book club.” I’m happy to have the excuse. I love Beatrice dearly, but she and I don’t have the same ideas about fun. She favors benefits and yacht parties. Wine tastings. Booze-soaked outings with Portland’s most well-heeled people.

Beatrice is fantastic at networking, because she actually enjoys it. “That’s the only way a scholarship kid can climb the ladder,” she said once.

I’m less enthusiastic, especially after a long day. The one time I went out to a party with her, she declared me “the worst wingwoman ever” after I turned down a guy who wanted to buy me a drink. Never mind that he had a tan line on his left ring finger.

I don’t care how successful he is, or how slick—I am not flirting with a married man. I barely remember how to flirt with a single one. And after my latest romantic disaster, I don’t even mind very much.

“You have fun,” I tell her. “I’ll be discussing a celebrity memoir with my high school friends.”

“You animal,” she says with a laugh. Then she rises from her chair. “I have to leave for my meeting with the publicist. See you tomorrow?”

“The publicist? Is there a problem?” We’ve had complaints from the neighbors. They objected to the noise during our demolition phase, and they’re worried about the impact of a museum—no matter how small—in the midst of the quiet residential neighborhood.

She shakes her head. “No problems. We’re just discussing future messaging for the Maritime Center.”

“Right. Got it.”

We’re still a year out from the center’s first public programming. But Beatrice is the kind of person who works ahead. Maybe she’s grabbing the reins of the director’s job before they can find someone else.

Not a bad strategy, really.

“Say hi to Natalie for me,” she says. “Tell her I have a new nail color set aside for her. It was too pink for me.”

“She’ll be thrilled.” My sixteen-year-old daughter loves Beatrice. They have the same expensive taste in beauty products, and they go to the same yoga class on Saturdays.

After Beatrice leaves, I do a lap of the second floor, shutting off the lights. Then, downstairs, I check the lock on the back door.

That done, I cross the atrium with hurried steps. It’s my dirty little secret that I don’t like to be alone in the mansion. The shadows are heavy and the space seems to echo.

I don’t believe in ghosts, and yet I understand why some people think this place is haunted. All old houses make noises, but this one makes more than its fair share. Creaks and groans. Century-old beams stretch and shift, like weary bones, and the atrium seems to magnify them.

My last stop is in the parlor—the biggest, brightest room on the first floor. There’s a carved marble fireplace imported from Italy and exquisite wall paintings of gods and goddesses, dolphins and ships.

To my eye, they’re a little overwrought. That’s my other dirty little secret—I don’t love the house like Beatrice does. My feelings about the mansion are the kind you have about a formidable acquaintance—one you respect, but whose company you don’t actually always enjoy.

This room is my favorite, though, with its high ceilings and French windows. The air smells of sunbaked varnish and perseverance. That’s the allure of old buildings—their dignity and their wisdom. I like to imagine this room in 1860, when the wall paintings were new. There would have been imported carpets on the floor and elaborate silk curtains on the windows.

Nobody becomes an architect by accident. You have to have an appreciation for grand spaces. You have to acknowledge the miracle of hand-carved moldings.

Although sometimes when I stand quietly in these empty rooms, it’s easier to evoke the Magdalene Home for Wayward Girls, circa 1965, than it is to picture the elegant mansion of 1860. I can almost hear the squeak of saddle shoes and the clank of the steam radiators that Marcus Wincott had installed to modernize the heating.

As I stare through the dust motes swirling toward the floorboards, I swear I can hear the murmur of the mealtime prayer from the dining room across the hall. The clatter of forks and the clink of teacups. The girls and their babies are almost more interesting to me than the Wincotts’ grandiosity.

After all, I was once a freaked-out pregnant girl myself.

I pause at the doorway and listen once more. Like people, every building has its own voice. The creak of the beams expanding under the slate roof. The rush of Maine’s coastal breezes buffeting the leaded-glass windows.

This home was built when Thomas Jefferson was president, and was expanded when Lincoln was president. Teddy Roosevelt slept here once in 190, right upstairs.

And now another summer begins. This is the season when tourists swarm Portland. They’re here to eat lobster rolls and walk past the old buildings. The Wincott Mansion has stood like a solemn doyenne on this block for almost two centuries, as Portland grew from a little fishing village to a bustling city.

She stands here, watching through leaded-glass eyes as people swirl around her sandstone skirts with their ever-changing desires. They come and go with the seasons and the tides. The mansion looks down at them with a benign smile and thinks: Your petty dramas have nothing on me .