For the first time that morning, I raised my voice.
“No.”
She stopped.
“I regretted waiting at the window when I was five.”
My throat tightened.
“I regretted believing you were coming back.”
I took another breath.
“I regretted asking Grandpa if I had done something wrong.”
Then I looked directly at her.
“This?”
I shook my head.
“This is the first thing I don’t regret.”
Three months later, a moving truck returned to the house.
But this time, it wasn’t carrying my parents’ furniture.
It brought boxes of donated books.
New curtains.
And a grand piano Grandpa had secretly purchased for me before he died.
My parents lost the financial case and were ordered to repay almost everything.
Dad’s business partners began distancing themselves.
Mom sold some of her jewelry.
Brianna moved into a rented room and started posting vague quotes online about betrayal.
I stayed in Grandpa’s house.
I restored his garden.
I opened his study every morning.
And on the desk, beside his photograph, I kept the final note he had ever written to me.
It said:
Let them come for the house.
Then show them who built a home.
