For the first time in a lifetime, Angelina and Will can choose again. After twenty-two years with children at home, she has no idea what she wants and is counting on the empty house to figure it out.

But he already knows—he wants her, all to himself.

Nine days into their child-free life, he quits his job and announces he’s home to stay. So Angelina announces she’s returning to nursing, this time in home health care.

In his new basement workroom, Will enjoys making boxes, but the quiet house sends him in search of music, where he meets Stella who reveals more than the magic of iPods.

Meanwhile, Angelina's first patient is an unpredictable woman named Lucy who reveals a particular magic of her own, as does her billboard-painting son John Milton. As Angelina and Will’s life together becomes increasingly tense and their days apart become increasingly comfortable, it looks like Will may be the one to get the empty house.


About Cynthia: Cynthia Newberry Martin's first novel, Tidal Flats, won the Gold Medal in Literary Fiction at the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Awards and the 14th Annual National Indie Excellence Award for Fiction. Martin's second novel, Love Like This, will be published in April of 2023. Her website features the How We Spend Our Days series, over a decade of essays by writers on their lives. She grew up in Atlanta and now lives in Columbus, Georgia, with her husband, and in Provincetown, Massachusetts, in a little house by the water.