1. Open Houses

Open Houses

"So what do you think? Can it even be salvaged?" she asks.

I'm standing in the doorway of a five-story brownstone in Brooklyn, perched at the edge of Cobble Hill. In my professional opinion, the brownstone is remarkable as it is: an extra-wide with steel windows, original banisters, wainscot ceilings some twelve feet above. And an eighteen-hundred-square-foot rooftop garden, which looks over a lush and lovely corner of Henry Street.

I turn to look at Morgan, my client. "What do you mean by salvaged , exactly?"

"Well, you're the expert, but the place obviously needs to be gutted. It's dumpy, you know?"

Morgan shakes her head, apparently waiting for me to catch up. She is beautiful and young (twenty-five, maybe twenty-six) and wearing the same blue knee-high boots that she's been clad in the few times we've met in person. Each time, she has seemed increasingly unhappy about being Brooklyn-bound. I don't know if it's this brownstone she doesn't like, or the idea of leaving Manhattan in general. But this move is clearly not one she is excited for.

She is moving to Brooklyn, she keeps telling me, because her fiancé, a business guy of some sort, is pushing for it. He has decided he wants to leave Tribeca and their North Moore Street loft and flee to the outer borough. I have yet to meet Morgan's fiancé, even though he was apparently the one who insisted that Morgan hire me. He wants to get married on the rooftop here. And, while they're at it, to completely renovate the five floors beneath it.

"When do you think it can all be done?" Morgan asks.

"Which part?"

"You know. All of it."

She motions to indicate the entire brownstone as she clips down the steps, down into the sunken living room.

"Let's start by talking about what you're imagining," I say. "Then we can get more granular and make sure we're on the same page in terms of schedule and planning. Sound good?"

"Sure…"

She sits down on the sofa, seemingly accepting this plan. But then she pulls her phone out of her bag—already bored with the details we haven't begun to discuss. She taps into Instagram, her five hundred thousand followers staring back at her. And she is lost to me.

I start unloading the brownstone's original blueprints anyway. The previous owner is an architect I've known since graduate school. He spent the better part of three years remodeling this space for his own family, not anticipating that his wife's job would send them to Colorado shortly after they moved in. There are, of course, many ways to design a space, but I can feel the attention he paid to every detail—the way the living room is relaxed and spacious, the rounded corners, the olive tree balancing out the fireplace, the natural light coming in from three directions.

You may think of noteworthy architecture as constructing the most novel, sculptural buildings. But I lean first and foremost into how people's environments can positively impact the quality of their lives. I am focused, most fundamentally, on building spaces that can be healing. I specialize in neuroarchitecture. Most of my clients are interested in this particular architectural approach, which is all about designing spaces to benefit overall well-being.

Whatever Morgan means by dumpy , I doubt that she is interested in exploring this type of calculus.

"Is your fiancé still joining or is it just going to be the two of us?" I ask.

Instead of answering, she holds her phone out, in selfie position, and puckers up. I step out of camera view as quickly as I can.

"He should be coming."

This is when her fiancé walks through the front door, the winter wind following him in. He is good-looking—tall and broad with a strong jaw, intense eyes. He is older than Morgan, nearly thirty, and wearing a sports jacket, with a hoodie peeking out beneath it, making him look younger than he is.

He is also, it turns out, my brother.

Sam nods in my direction. "What's going on, Nora?"

"You've got to be kidding me," I say.

Morgan sits up and looks back and forth between us. "Do you two know each other?" she asks.

"Nora's actually my sister," he says.

"Your sister ?"

I smile, motion between them. "Do you two know each other?"

It's a little unfair. I can count the number of times I've been in the same room as Sam. We didn't see each other often while we were growing up. We see each other even less now that we're adults. I'm the only child from our father's first marriage. Sam is one of two kids from his second. You could argue that Sam and his twin brother, Tommy, are the reason there was a second marriage—their mother's surprise pregnancy a small tip-off to the fact that my parents' relationship wasn't exactly working.

" Sam. What the fuck?" Morgan says. "You didn't think this was something you should've mentioned?"

I'm not sure if the "this" she's referring to is my brother hiring me without telling her who I am—or whether she's referring to Sam even having a sister in the first place. I'm leaning toward the latter, but before Sam can answer her, Morgan's phone buzzes with an incoming call. She mumbles that it's their wedding planner. Then she disappears into the hallway to talk with her.

I turn back toward Sam, who gives me a smile. "It's good to see you," he says. "How have you been?"

"Why do you have to be so shady?" I ask.

His smile disappears.

"I've been trying to reach you for over a month. You haven't returned any of my calls. But I'm the shady one?"

He has called me—that part is true. Since our father died, I've avoided his voice messages and a couple of cryptic emails. Our father hadn't wanted a funeral, so I've avoided seeing my brother in person too.

The truth of the matter is that I don't want to get into anything with Sam. History has shown me it's best not to get into anything with him—or anyone from my father's second family. From my father's third family, for that matter.

"I need to talk to you," he says.

"You bought an eight-million-dollar brownstone to have a conversation?"

"It's a pretty important conversation."

I start reaching for the blueprints, putting them back in their tubes. "I'm late for my next client."

"Morgan actually had you block out the rest of the afternoon, so…"

I don't often take on residential projects like this brownstone anymore. But Morgan had paid a hefty retainer up front—the kind of retainer that gives me the latitude to do more of the work that I love the most, the kind of retainer that allows her to request extra hours of my time.

"Happy to void the check," I say.

"Can we just sit and talk for a few fucking minutes?"

"I thought I made my position clear," I say. "I don't want Dad's money. I didn't want it when he was alive. I certainly don't want it now."

"I'm not here about that," he says.

I look up, meet his eyes. A familiar hazy-green. My father's green. They have the same eyes, same light hair, same skin. It stings, but I force myself to push that down.

It's easier when I remind myself that my brother is only ever here about that. Even on the other side of our shared loss, he's certainly not suddenly interested in us having a relationship. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is fine. I have no interest in having a relationship with Sam. And I have even less interest in having anything to do with my father's company.

As I replied when I forwarded Sam's latest email (Subject line: We need to talk ) to my father's lawyers, Sam can have anything of our father's he wants. They all can.

"Take care of yourself, Sam," I say.

I start walking toward the front door. The door that will lead me outside and down the front steps and away from here.

"Would you wait?"

I keep walking and I'm almost free. I'm free of him again and his family again and the world of them again.

And then, my hand on the doorknob, my brother says one thing. The only thing that would stop me.

"Nora. Dad's death?" Sam calls out. "His fall…"

I stop moving. I don't take my hand off the doorknob. But I do stop moving.

"It wasn't an accident."