The beach house, under Victoria’s rule, had felt like a stage set. Behind the façade of tasteful decor, everything had been arranged for appearances: driftwood art that somehow looked too polished, matching pillows that had never seen sand, a vase of artificial shells carefully glued in place on the coffee table.
I spent the first morning walking through each room, taking inventory of what had changed and what had survived her touch.
The living room, once filled with mismatched furniture my grandparents had scavenged from yard sales and refinished, now sported sleek leather couches and minimalist side tables. I could almost hear Mom’s dry commentary: “Looks like a hotel lobby, doesn’t it, Alex?”
The kitchen had been remodeled—white cabinets, marble countertops, stainless steel appliances. Objectively, it was beautiful. Subjectively, it made my heart ache. The hand-painted tiles Mom and I had created one summer—little scenes of starfish, seagulls, and our family name surrounded by swirling waves—were hidden behind panels or removed entirely in some places.
I ran my fingers along one intact tile we’d managed to find behind the toaster and whispered, “We’ll fix this.”
One step at a time.
I rehung the old family photos I found stuffed into boxes in the attic, pushed behind holiday decorations and forgotten sports equipment. There was one of my grandparents standing proudly in front of a much younger version of the house, my grandmother wearing a bandana, paint roller in hand. Another of Mom, pregnant with me, holding a paintbrush dipped in sea-blue paint as she gestured dramatically at the bare wall where a mural would later bloom. Countless pictures of me: covered in sand, building crooked castles, perched on the porch railing with a book, asleep in a hammock with a half-eaten popsicle in hand.
By the end of the first week, the walls no longer felt like strangers. They felt like they were exhaling, finally allowed to tell the truth again.
Out in the garden, I knelt beside the roses.
Some had been damaged but not fatally. I carefully tamped the soil down around their roots, whispering apologies to them like they were old friends who’d been startled awake. A few bushes were beyond saving—roots hacked too deeply, stems broken at the base. Those I trimmed gently and laid aside. I’d plant new ones in their place.