I could have kept it. It was legally mine now — the will, once everything was settled, left it to me, and I’d paid to save it besides. Brad and Stephanie, chastened, wouldn’t have said a word if I’d stayed there alone for the rest of my life.
Instead, I did what Frank would have wanted, and what I wanted too, once the anger burned off and only the love was left.
I put the house in a family trust. For all of us. For Brad and Stephanie and their children, and for me, for as long as I want to live in it. Their mother’s house, saved by their stepmother, kept in the family the way Frank always dreamed.
Because here’s the thing eleven years of “she’s just here for the house” never understood:
I never wanted the house.
I wanted the family.
