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Nico’s left front tire dipped into a pothole so deep not even the high-tech suspension of his Mercedes Maybach could handle the sudden tilt. He let out a high performance swear as his hands briefly lost the wheel.

“What’s the matter?” Vince, listening via speakerphone, said. “You hit a tumbleweed?”

“Just a larger than average pothole. The only things tumbling around here are plastic bags.” He slowed down and paid more attention as he continued to drive.

“That bad, eh?” Vince said. “You should be here. It’s gorgeous.”

The lilt of chirruping birds, gurgle of a sizable mountain stream, and tinkle of laughter—no doubt from Nico’s two young nephews—were occasionally audible through the phone.

These bucolic sounds were occasionally punctuated by the unmistakable zing of a fishing line winging toward hungry, unsuspecting fish.

Their Colorado vacation must be treating Vince and his little family well.

“That good ,” Nico corrected him. “When was the last time you were home?”

Even as he said the word, it felt foreign in his mouth.

This street hadn’t been home to either of them in almost two decades.

From their infrequent visits, Vince and Nico had watched as the houses they’d ridden their bikes past and spent time in after school with friends deteriorated bit by bit—grass lots became weed farms, foundations developed zigzag cracks, and rooflines sagged like the jawlines of the stubborn old biddies still living in them.

Two of the most stubborn biddies had been their own mother and Aunt, Claire and Celia, both of whom had refused to move out of the tiny two-bedroom bungalow Nico had grown up in.

In the end, there had been a poetic symmetry to it all, because at the same pace with which the neighborhood took its final downward slide, dementia stole away Claire and Celia’s ability to recognize pretty much anything—including the house.

Vince sounded thoughtful. “I haven’t been there since I brought Mom and Aunt Celia to the home. I guess that’s been about, what, five years? Must look super depressing by now.”

“It would look super depressing if it didn’t look so much like money. And I might be angry at the person who let this area sink to this state, except that person is us.”

“Right, right,” Vince said, with that little extra umph in his voice that told Nico he was staying on task—or trying to. “It’s finally all ours to offer to the highest bidder.”

Nico’s lips stretched into a satisfied smile. “It’s taken us a decade to quietly buy up every property on this street, and then the factory and old shopping mall too. We’ve got sixty acres of the best real estate Hollywood has had in one uninterrupted parcel for probably a hundred years.”

Vince barked a triumphant laugh. “The city’s VIPs will be crying into their single malts when they figure out the long game you’ve pulled off!”

“ We’ve pulled off, bro. You’re an equal part of this, and you’ve got to stop thinking you’re not.”

“Okay, okay, Nico,” he said. “I’ll try. It’s just, it was your idea, and you kept it going. I only did the things you asked me to here and there.”

“Those were critical things,” Nico said, trying as usual to bolster his brother’s confidence, “and you did them well.” Except for leaving too many of these houses up. “You’ve got good instincts—you just need to start following them more.”

Vince was a terrific guy with good vision, but he lacked initiative, preferring to be told what to do.

Because Nico was a tell-people-what-to-do guy, they made a good team, but with the deal they were about to make, they were both going to be financially set for life.

Vince would be able to follow his own visions, and Nico wanted him to believe that he could.

Nico rolled down the windows. The hot wind brushing his skin was tinged with the odor of gasoline and decay. Poignantly absent were the scents of wet laundry drying on lines and fresh baked pies cooling on kitchen sills.

“Right, follow my gut,” Vince said. “Speaking of…you sure you don’t need help with things now? I can get a flight tonight.”

Nico shook his head. “No, no, no. Enjoy your trip with Sarah and the boys. I don’t really have to be here myself.

There’s so little to do. It’s just putting up the listing and then managing the social media explosion.

Our real estate team will handle all that with ease—and they better, considering the commission they’ll be scoring. ”

“Then come to Colorado! Sarah says the woman staying at the condo next to ours would be perfect for you—very pretty and runs a growing personal shopping business.”

Nico stifled a groan. “It’s sweet of Sarah to keep trying to set me up with someone, but I wish she wouldn’t. I’m not looking.” And I’ll never be looking.

“I keep telling her you’ve always been anti marriage, but she doesn’t believe it. She’s very persistent.”

“Then I’ll prove it to her by never marrying.” He did an internal eye roll. Why did this topic keep coming up? The energy that married people put into trying to get their single friends and relations hitched was proof that misery loved company.

“But if you’re not needed, why are you there?”

“I’ve been traveling so much, I haven’t visited Mom in two months. Feel like a terrible son.”

“You’re not! Besides, Sarah or I see her at least weekly. She’s well cared for there.”

“Does she still recognize you now and then?”

Vince sighed. “Sometimes there seems to be a glimmer, but then it’s gone.”

Nico knew this was the case but tried to hold onto hope.

She hadn’t recognized him at all on his last visit, and he had been surprised by how angry that had made him—not at his mom, but at the disease stealing the most beloved person in his life away from him.

“They say familiar things can jog a person’s memory when they have dementia.

Maybe there’s something I could bring her from the house?

I brought my key and I’m planning to take a final walk through. ”

“There’s nothing left. Everything that wasn’t firmly attached has been stripped clean.

Honestly, it might not even be standing.

The roof was in bad shape five years ago.

The real estate company sent someone out to look at it, and just from the photos they took, we decided it wasn’t worth fixing it up even as a rental.

You may be walking more over it than through it.

Ours was the only somewhat habitable dwelling left on the whole street, and now it’s had five more years of neglect. ”

“Yeah, I know,” Nico said while sending up a silent prayer he would be able to do a walk through. Even if nothing would jog their mother’s memory, there was still an object in the house he hoped to find. Something he wanted for himself.

Vince emitted a sound halfway between a whoop and a grunt. “Whoa! Feels like a lunker! I’m gonna see if the boys can help me reel this one in. Let me know how things go.”

“Will do,” Nico said and clicked off. He held his breath as he reached the final stretch, bracing himself to find a pile of peeled-paint siding and tumbled fireplace brick where the house used to be. But when the Placard house finally came into view, he nearly swerved off the road.

Was he hallucinating? Had he turned onto the wrong street, wrong town, wrong side of the planet?

There, between an empty lot and a house that looked as if he could knock it down with the tap of a finger, was his childhood home…

and yet not. His mother had always, always kept the one-story bungalow white with white trim.

Now, somehow, it was not only still standing, but looked like a sherbet factory had exploded over it.

A sickly peach pink covered the siding over the small front porch.

Not to be outdone, a lime green vile enough to please any storybook villain assaulted the living room bump-out to the right.

But, not to worry, because periwinkle blue trim and shutters in various shades of yellow pulled it all together into a cohesive hideousness.

After seriously considering whether someone had slipped hallucinatory drugs into his morning coffee, Nico spotted the source of the pastel infestation.

On the left side of the house—the side where his mother and aunt had shared a bedroom—a woman stood high on a ladder, paint brush in hand.

Air pods peeked out from her ears, and she didn’t turn at the sound of his car approaching.

He couldn't help noticing how shapely she was.

The way her cute butt wiggled with each brush stroke almost made up for her turning the fascia the color of a three-day-old bruise.

His gaze was so fixed on the woman that he hit his brakes too hard, causing them to squeal.

The sound must have startled her, because he heard a panicked scream as she lost her balance.

Her arms flailed as she tried desperately to return herself to full upright on the ladder, which was threatening to wobble backwards.

“Hold on,” Nico yelled as he leapt from his car and ran to the underside of the ladder.

Grabbing it with both hands, he yanked it back toward the house.

Unfortunately for him, he accomplished the deed with a little too much force.

The paint can dangling from the top of the ladder rail tipped, sloshing a wave of periwinkle down onto his head.

Thick, sun-warmed liquid dripped past his ears and onto his shoulders as his nostrils filled with the sweet chemical smell of latex.

Great . He’d picked up this brand new, expensive suit from the tailor that morning.