They spoke in hushed tones not far from the porch. I watched his face carefully as she waved her hands, gesturing at me, at the officers, at the house. He opened the folder Officer Martinez handed him, scanned the trust documents, frowned, flipped pages.
His shoulders sank.
He looked at Victoria and started speaking, his expression measured, controlled. She went pale. Then flushed red. Then pale again.
I didn’t need to hear the words to know what he was saying.
The trust was ironclad.
Any paperwork she’d had my father sign was meaningless in the face of it.
Not only did she not own the house, but her attempts to claim ownership might have crossed the line into something ugly—fraud, coercion, manipulation of a widower still staggered by grief.
I turned away from them and looked at the house.
Mom’s house.
“My property manager should be here soon,” I said absently, more to myself than anyone else. “The locks need to be changed back. Immediately.”
“You can’t do that!” Lily burst out.
I looked at her again. “Pretty sure I can.”
“This is our summer home,” she said, voice cracking on the word our. “We’ve been coming here for years. You can’t just kick us out. That’s—”
“I’m not kicking anyone out,” I said, surprising us both. “Contrary to your mother’s narrative, I don’t actually enjoy creating drama.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” she muttered, but there was less conviction in it now.
“This house has always been a family home,” I continued. “But it’s my family’s legacy—and I mean Mom’s family. My grandparents. Her. Me. I’m not going to let anyone erase that. If you want to come here in the future, you can. But it will be as guests. Not as people trying to claim ownership.”
It wasn’t magnanimous. It didn’t erase the hurt. But it felt… right.
Victoria stormed past us a few minutes later, heels digging into the shells as she stalked to her Mercedes. She yanked the door open, took one last look at the house—as if memorizing it in case she never saw it again—and then slammed herself inside.
The car tore out of the driveway, shells flying, the NO TRESPASSING sign rattling in her wake.
Lily glanced between me and my father, then jogged after her mother, climbing into the passenger side just as the car disappeared back into the fog.
Silence descended over the driveway.