“The market is good right now,” he said. “And honestly, splitting the proceeds three ways would be meaningful for all of us.”
“It would be meaningful for me too,” I replied. “But I want to take some time to think about it.”
“Of course,” he said. “Absolutely. No rush.”
The silence afterward suggested he believed there was.
Amber texted instead of calling, exactly as I’d expected. She said she was thinking of me, hoped we could discuss the next steps soon, added a heart emoji, then followed it with a message mentioning that she’d been looking at the housing market and that it seemed like a favorable time to sell.
I appreciated the heart emoji, even if it was immediately followed by market research.
That evening I answered neither of them.
Instead, I sat in my apartment with a bowl of leftover soup and the folder from Gerald, thinking about the gray colonial, the red front door, and the little creek that had supposedly swallowed my shoe. Doors& Windows
Eventually, I got in my car and drove to the house.
I still had my key because I’d been managing Dad’s affairs during his illness. It slipped into the lock as easily as always, though somehow I hadn’t been certain it would. I stood quietly inside the dark entryway before reaching for the light switch.
