The following morning, I contacted Lorraine and a real estate agent named Celeste Moreno. I told Celeste I wanted the Willow Creek house, even though the investor had already purchased it for $940,000. She warned me that the company would demand considerably more than it had paid. I asked her to make an offer anyway. After speaking with Lorraine, Celeste understood that I could pay cash. Six days after my son’s cruel question, I purchased the property for $1.25 million through Second Cup Holdings. The investor accepted within hours, delighted to make a substantial profit without beginning renovations. We closed eight days later. I never told Daniel where I was going. I simply said I had found a little place in Phoenix and would move out by the end of the month. Renee helped me pack, suddenly kinder than she had been in months. Before leaving, I retrieved Harold’s sign from the garage shelf where it had sat between Christmas decorations and bottled water.

My granddaughter Chloe caught me beside my Buick. With tears in her eyes, she apologized for remaining silent at dinner. She admitted she had known her parents wanted me to leave because she hoped the casita would become her bedroom. I knelt beside her and reminded her that she was twelve and shouldn’t have been responsible for solving grown-up problems. But I asked her to remember how uncomfortable it felt to know something was wrong and say nothing. Then I drove to Willow Creek Lane. The house was empty, with old carpeting and cabinets already removed, but the porch remained untouched. I sat on its swing, holding Harold’s blue mug, and watched the sun sink behind Camelback Mountain. For the first time since his death, I felt I had found somewhere I truly wanted to be. Over the next four months, I restored the house rather than gutting it. I refinished the original oak floors, rebuilt the white kitchen cabinets, repaired the porch fan, painted the kitchen lemon yellow, and planted six rose bushes. Finally, I hung Harold’s sign above the swing.