Chapter 18 - What I Did With the House
People often assumed getting my house back was the happy ending.
It wasn't.
Selling it myself was.
Because that was the moment the story stopped being about what Dominic and Amber had done and became about what I chose to do next.
My new townhouse was smaller.
Easier.
Brighter.
The garden was mine from scratch.
Harold's chair sat beside a window instead of a fireplace.
My grandmother's lamp stood beside it.
Photographs filled the shelves.
Not because I lived in the past.
Because the past belonged to me.
Harold's Chair expanded to three senior communities.
Dorothy became its unofficial queen.
Margaret recruited younger attorneys to volunteer.
Sarah handled the website.
And Dominic spoke at workshops whenever asked.
Sometimes residents stared at him suspiciously.
He let them.
He had learned that discomfort wasn't injustice.
Sometimes it was accountability.
On the anniversary of the morning I saw the SOLD sign, we held a picnic.
Dorothy raised her lemonade.
“To Vera.”
I shook my head.
“To choices.”
Everyone drank to that.
Dominic sat across from me.
He smiled.
I smiled back.
Not because everything was forgotten.
Because everything was finally where it belonged.
May you like
Behind us.
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