Chapter 14 - The House Across the Water
Three years after Grandma died, I permanently moved into the beach house.
I had spent years moving between apartments.
For the first time, I wanted roots.
I turned Grandma's sewing room into an office.
Caroline helped.
Lauren painted the walls.
Mom planted hydrangeas.
Dad rebuilt part of the porch railing.
He refused to let me pay him.
"Consider it interest."
"On forty thousand dollars?"
"I'll be repairing this house until I'm ninety."
"Probably."
Our relationship had changed.
It wasn't what it had been before the exclusion.
Maybe that was good.
The old relationship had been built on me accepting whatever they gave me.
The new one required truth.
Dad eventually repaid every dollar he'd taken, with interest.
I donated half to the Fresh Start Fund.
When I told him, he cried.
That summer, a real estate developer offered me nearly three times what Grandma's property had been valued at when she died.
The offer was enormous.
Everyone expected me to refuse immediately.
I didn't.
I considered it.
That surprised people.
But I had learned something.
Keeping Grandma's house out of guilt would be another kind of prison.
I walked along the beach for hours.
Then I realized why I wanted to keep it.
Not because Grandma told me to.
Because I loved it.
So I rejected the offer.
The house remained mine.
Not the family's.
Not Grandma's.
May you like
Mine.
That distinction finally felt peaceful.
