My mother-in-law treats my mom's lake house like a free luxury resort — we put up with it all summer, but when she told my mother to move her own geraniums because they were blocking her view from the lounger, I decided she needed a lesson she'd remember.

I found out about the phone call at breakfast.

Ron came down first, which was unusual.

He poured himself a coffee and stood at the counter instead of taking it outside, and there was something in the set of his shoulders that told me he hadn't slept well.

"Morning," I said.

"Morning, Claire." He looked into his cup.

"Susan called her sister last night."

I set down the orange juice.

"Okay."

"Patty's driving up this morning." He finally looked at me.

"I just thought you should know before she arrived."

Patty.

Susan's younger sister, who had been at our wedding and spent the entire reception telling people that Daniel had almost married a girl from his hometown who was, apparently, much more suitable.

I had been standing three feet away when she said it.

"Does Daniel know?" I said.

"Not yet."

My mom came in from the back porch with a basket of herbs from her little garden, and she looked between us and read the room the way mothers do.

"Everything all right?"

"Fine," I said, and smiled at her, and it was the same smile she'd been giving me for thirty years when things were not fine.

Daniel came downstairs twenty minutes later.

I told him in the hallway before he reached the kitchen.

His jaw tightened.

"She called Patty."

"She's already on her way, apparently."

"Why would she—" He stopped.

Then: "She's bringing backup."

"That's what it looks like."

He stood there for a moment.

Then he said, very quietly: "She doesn't think I'm going to hold the line."

"Are you?"

He looked at me.

"Yes."

Susan came down at nine, bright and unhurried, and if she knew that Ron had warned us she gave no sign of it.

She kissed Daniel on the cheek, said good morning to my mom with the particular warmth she deployed when she wanted to signal that any tension was entirely someone else's creation, and took her iced tea out to the deck.

The geraniums were still there.

She looked at them for a long moment.

Then she sat down and picked up her phone.

Patty arrived at eleven.

She came through the front door with a weekend bag and a smile that didn't reach her eyes and said, "Susan called and said you could use the extra company," to the room in general, which was a sentence designed to mean several things at once.

Daniel said: "Patty.

Can I talk to you and Mom for a minute?"

Susan looked up from her phone.

Something passed between the sisters — quick, almost invisible.