Mark stepped forward automatically.
“Mom, I’ll get it.”
She pulled it back before he could take it.
“No.”
The word was clipped.
Then she looked at Claire.
“I still think you could have handled this differently.”
Claire nodded.
“Probably.”
Diane seemed surprised by the answer.
Claire glanced toward the luggage.
“But so could everyone else.”
Lisa bent down and picked up one of the storage bins.
No one spoke while she carried it toward the silver SUV.
Mark remained on the porch with the papers in his hand.
Claire looked through the open front door toward the kitchen table where her laptop was still sitting beside the unfinished report.
Less than two hours earlier, she had been working there, unaware that several other people had already created a plan for her house, her office, and the next several months of her life.
Now the plan was no longer moving forward simply because someone had announced it.
