My mother’s quilt was folded on top of a plastic bin. Not inside. On top, like afterthought.
I reached for it. My hands were shaking so badly I had to press them flat against the fabric to steady them. It was still soft. It still smelled faintly of her cedar closet.
Behind me, the door creaked. Darien had followed.
“Mom, please. Don’t do this in the garage.”
“Do what?” My voice came out low. “Look at where you put me?”
He flinched. In the harsh overhead light he looked younger, the lines around his eyes deeper than I remembered. He hadn’t shaved.
“It was supposed to be temporary,” he whispered. “Just while you were gone. She said you’d understand when you saw how much better it looked. She said you would agree it made sense.”
“Did I agree, Darien?”
He swallowed. He couldn’t answer.
Sabine appeared in the doorway behind him, her silhouette cut against the warm light from the house. She didn’t come onto the concrete.
“Coralie, you’re being emotional. We can discuss this like adults. The house is too big for one person. You rattling around in the master, us crammed in that little back room—”
“Stop,” I said.
She tilted her head. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t get to tell me I’m emotional in my own house. You don’t get to tell me what makes sense with my own walls.”
I pulled the top box toward me. It was lighter than it should have been. The tape gave easily. Inside were my photographs, but not as I’d left them. The frames were stacked, glass facing glass without paper between them. One was already cracked, a thin spiderweb across Louis’s face in our wedding photo.
I lifted it out carefully. The crack cut right through his smile.
Something else was under the photos. Papers. Not mine.
A glossy stack, corner-stapled. At the top, in clean sans-serif: PREMIER REALTY – COMPARATIVE MARKET ANALYSIS. Under it, a photo of my house. My porch. My hydrangeas.
The address was printed underneath. An estimated value. $418,000.
My breath stopped.
“What is this?” I held it up.
Darien’s face drained of color. Sabine’s smile finally, truly, broke.
“Where did you get that?” Sabine said quickly, stepping onto the concrete now. “That’s private.”
“It was in my box. With my husband’s picture.” My hand tightened on the papers until they bent. “Are you selling my house?”
“It’s not like that,” Darien said too fast. “Mom—”
“It is not your house to sell,” I said, looking straight at Sabine. “It will never be your house to sell.”
Sabine recovered first. She smoothed her blouse, her voice turning reasonable again, that patient tone she used when she thought I was being a difficult child. “No one is selling anything behind your back, Coralie. We had an agent friend do a valuation. For planning purposes. Darien and I have been talking about our future. We need to know what our options are. This house is an asset. You’re alone here. We’re thinking of starting a family—”
“We had a valuation done while I was feeding my friend soup with a spoon,” I said quietly. “You moved my bed out so you could stage my bedroom?”
Darien made a small sound. He pressed his palms to his eyes.
“Sabine thought—” he started.
