Epilogue: The House Remembered
Eleanor stared at me as if the garden itself had betrayed her.
Behind us, the old house stood in the afternoon light, its stained-glass window catching the sun the way it always had when my father was alive.
She had tried to sell it.
She had tried to erase it.
She had tried to turn grief into leverage and inheritance into punishment.
But my father had known her better than she thought.
He had protected the home.
He had protected me.
And now, for the first time, Eleanor was learning that control is not the same thing as ownership.
I picked up the pruning shears again and turned back to the roses.
“You should call your attorney,” I said.
For once, Eleanor had no answer.
The house remained standing behind me, old and stubborn and full of memory.
And beneath the quiet, I could almost hear my father laughing.
