Removing the old playhouse from the slope behind Diane Bittner's house had been on her to do list for ages. But she'd put it off because the ginger cat that hung out in her yard liked to sun itself on the roof. Also because her late husband, Will, had put a lot of love into planning and overseeing the construction. Whenever she looked at it, she saw him once again, grinning at their daughter's eagerness to stage her first tea party.
Now, at twelve, Brittany had outgrown the playhouse, which was succumbing to dry rot. Eventually, Diane planned to hire someone to remove it, but September had arrived already and she was busy with her fourth grade class.
Perhaps she should have been grateful then, when one Saturday afternoon the new neighbor behind her—the man whose hammering and sawing had been making her life miserable for weeks—dropped a tree on it.
But she wasn't.
First, the crash scared the stuffing out of the cat, Lucy, who leaped off her perch ...
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