It hadn’t been paranoia. Mom had seen it. Margaret had seen it. I just hadn’t wanted to see it as clearly.
We wrapped up the call, and I walked to my living room window. Outside, the sky had shifted from fiery orange to deep purple, city lights sparkling like a second constellation below. Somewhere out there, people were going about their lives, unaware that in one small apartment, a battle line had been quietly drawn over a house by the sea.
My phone buzzed again.
Victoria.
I’m having your mother’s roses removed from the garden tomorrow, her text said. Time to let go of the past.
For a moment, I couldn’t breathe.
I could see the roses clearly: deep crimson, planted along the front path, dancing in the sea breeze. Mom had cared for those bushes like they were old friends. She’d talked to them while she pruned, humming under her breath, fingers stained green. She’d given cuttings to neighbors, saying, “So a little piece of our home can bloom at yours.”
Time to let go of the past.
I didn’t reply. There was nothing I could say that would matter to her. She wasn’t trying to inform me. She was trying to hurt me. To mark the house as hers by tearing out one of the last tangible pieces of Mom.
Instead, I set my phone aside and went to my bedroom.
I packed.
I packed jeans and sweaters and the old navy-blue hoodie Mom had once stolen from my closet, worn all weekend at the beach house, and then reluctantly returned after we’d argued playfully about “ownership.” I packed the manila envelope with the trust documents and the deed, tucking them carefully between two thick hardcover books. I slid a worn photo of Mom and me on the beach—me about seven years old, hair in tangled braids, her in a floppy hat—into the inside pocket of my bag.
As I zipped the suitcase closed, Mom’s voice popped into my mind again, from that last summer we’d spent together at the house.
“Sometimes, sweetheart,” she’d said, as we’d sat on the porch watching the sun slip beneath the horizon, turning the water molten gold, “the best revenge is simply standing your ground and letting others realize how badly they’ve underestimated you.”
I hadn’t fully understood it then.
I did now.
Tomorrow, Victoria would learn exactly what that meant.