Part of me — the part that had absorbed eleven years of “she’s just here for the house” — wanted to call a family meeting and read every page aloud and watch Brad and Stephanie understand, finally, exactly who I was and what I’d done.
I’d earned that. God knows I’d earned it.
But when I picked up Frank’s letter again, I kept catching on one line.
“I chose their pride over your dignity, over and over, and it was the great cowardice of my life.”
And I realized that if I called that meeting to humiliate them — to finally win — I’d be making the same trade Frank made, just in the other direction. Choosing my vindication over the family Frank spent his whole life trying to hold together.
I didn’t want to be brave the way revenge is brave.
I wanted to be brave the way Frank wished he’d been.
So I called Brad and Stephanie, and I asked them to come to the house — their mother’s house, the house I’d saved — and I sat them down at the dining table, and I opened the box.
