We spent the afternoon in the living room, the leather couch creaking under us despite its polished surface. I dug out old photo albums from the attic and spread them across the coffee table. We flipped through them slowly.
He pointed out stories I’d never heard—how my grandparents had saved every spare dollar for years to buy the land for the house, how the first summer they’d lived here they’d slept on mattresses on the floor because they couldn’t afford beds yet, how Mom had once declared she’d never marry a man who didn’t love the ocean and then promptly fallen for him on a rainy day at a bookstore inland.
“I remember this,” he said, tapping a photo of Mom and me covered in paint flecks, grinning in front of the wall we’d decorated with our sea-life mural. “She was so proud of you. She kept telling everyone you had an eye for color.”
“She told me the same thing when I painted my nails purple,” I said, smiling faintly. “You said I looked like a bruise. She said I looked like a storm.”
We laughed, the sound tentative at first, then more genuine.
Years of hurt didn’t vanish in one afternoon. But something shifted. The distance between us, woven from silences and misunderstandings, began to thin.
Victoria made one final attempt to reclaim the house about a week later.
I was in the kitchen, carefully prying off one of the bland white backsplash tiles to reveal the edge of one of our old hand-painted ones beneath, when I heard the unmistakable slam of a car door.
I sighed, already bracing myself.
She walked in like she still owned the place, trailed by a well-dressed woman carrying a leather portfolio and wearing high heels entirely unsuited for the sandy path.
“This is the real estate agent,” Victoria announced. “We’re getting the house appraised. It’s wasted on you, Alexandra. You clearly can’t appreciate its market value.”
I wiped tile dust off my hands and leaned against the counter.
“Market value,” I repeated. “Right.”
The agent opened her portfolio, flipping through some documents, trying to maintain her professional smile despite the tension in the room. “Mrs. Harrison said—”
I held up a hand. “I’m sure she did. But I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding. I’m the owner of this property.”
The agent blinked. “But Mrs. Harrison said her husband—”
“Signed it over,” I finished. “He tried. But legally, he couldn’t. The beach house is held in trust. My trust.”