No fake perfume lingering in the hallway. No passive-aggressive Post-its on the fridge about how the dishwasher “should” be loaded. No 3 a.m. screaming from Brandon’s room about “lag.”
Silence can be weird when you’re used to constantly bracing for the next explosion.
For the first few nights, I kept waiting for Tracy to burst in, to complain about the noise of my Netflix show, to tell me I was doing something wrong.
She didn’t.
She couldn’t.
It finally sank in: I could arrange the furniture however I wanted. Hang whatever art I wanted. Cook whatever I wanted without commentary.
I started claiming rooms.
Brandon’s old lair? I scrubbed it down (with gloves; there are some things bleach can’t fix), painted the walls a warm neutral, and turned it into a home office. A real one. My desk by the window. Shelves lined with textbooks and actual designer stationery I bought for myself because I could.
Sierra’s Instagram-ready bedroom became my dream closet. Full-length mirror. Shoe racks. My mom’s clothes that Grandma had saved, hung carefully next to my own.
Tracy’s “meditation room”—which had mostly been a place where she sat on a yoga mat and watched Real Housewives on her iPad—became my yoga studio. I put actual plants in there. Her faux fiddle-leaf fig went to the curb.
I replaced the towels.
I bought the nice, thick ones she’d always complained were “too heavy” and “a waste of money.” White, fluffy, folded just so in the linen closet.
I smiled every time I walked past them.
At night, I’d stand in the doorway of the living room and imagine Grandma scolding me for leaving my shoes in the hallway, Grandpa grumbling about the Sox, my mom curled up on the couch with a book.
Sometimes it hurt. A lot.
Sometimes it felt like closure.
One afternoon, the doorbell rang.
It was Elise.
She stood on the porch with a suitcase in one hand and a casserole dish in the other.
“Heard you have room,” she said.
I laughed.
“I have three,” I said. “Pick one.”
She moved into the guest room they’d once used. It felt right.
We fell into an easy rhythm.
She worked remotely on her own stuff. I worked my Starbucks shifts, took my classes, and slowly relearned how to live in my own house without expecting someone to nitpick every move.
On weekends, Elise taught me my mom’s old recipes.