They left on Sunday. The house became strangely quiet afterward, but for once the silence did not feel empty. It felt like space. Trevor wrote the following spring. His letter was four pages long, but only the fourth page contained anything honest. I answered that page and nothing else. He visits me twice a year now, and remarkably, he has never mentioned the deed or what the house is worth.

Rosalind still sends me birthday messages every July. I used to correct her, explain things, or hope she might finally understand. I don’t anymore. I simply leave them unanswered. Dashiell had his attorney send Cordelia a letter accusing her of undue influence. Cordelia’s response was only one paragraph. After that, we heard nothing more. The accusations disappeared as quickly as they had arrived.

I changed the ground floor completely. Instead of allowing it to remain another room filled with memories and obligations, I turned it into a workshop. At nineteen, I had trained in furniture restoration before the caring years swallowed my plans. Now I restore furniture again. I work with my hands, repair beautiful old things, and watch them become useful instead of forgotten. It feels strangely fitting. Some things are worth restoring, but some things are meant to be left behind.

This June, three friends came to my birthday. One was a woman I had met on a train, someone who had known me for barely a few months but somehow saw more of me than people who had known me for decades. We ate together on the porch until the sunlight disappeared. I spent six years believing the date had somehow drifted away from everyone. It hadn’t. The date simply hadn’t mattered to people who were looking at something else. I finally stopped standing in rooms, waiting to be noticed by people counting what they could take. Ambrose had given me a door. At last, I had walked through it.