I came home after fifteen days away.
My suitcase was still beside me. One wheel tilted against the hardwood.
My bedroom was gone.
Not messy. Not robbed.
Gone.
The walnut bed I shared with Louis for years — gone.
My wedding photograph — gone.
My mother’s quilt — gone.
Every picture of my children — gone.
In its place was a stranger’s room.
White upholstered bed with too many pillows.
Silver lamps. Stiff curtains. A glass desk by the window.
Expensive gray walls where I had once painted cream-colored walls myself after Louis’s funeral.
Three days it took me. Because grief made even lifting a roller feel heavy.
Now it was all gray. Cold. Perfect.
And Sabine stood in the doorway, arms crossed, smiling.
Not nervously. Not apologetically.
Pleased.
“What did you do to my room?”
“We moved your things to the garage,” she said casually. “This room is ours now.”
Behind her, my son wouldn’t look at me.
Darien stood near the staircase, one hand on the rail, eyes fixed on the floor.
“Darien?”
He didn’t answer.
My name is Coralie. I had spent fifteen days in Hendersonville helping my old friend Martha recover from surgery.
Weak porch coffee. Pharmacy runs. Reheated soup.
I came home tired but content.
That contentment died in that hallway.
“This house is in my name,” I said, my fingers tightening around my keys.
Sabine’s smile weakened, just slightly.
