Grief makes people reveal their true colors. For Cheryl, it took two days after my father’s funeral to show hers. “You don’t belong here anymore,” she said, already erasing traces of our family from the home we’d shared.
What she didn’t know? Dad had been three steps ahead.
Aunt Janine arrived the next morning with legal firepower—documents proving the house had been placed in a trust for me years earlier. The look on Cheryl’s face as she realized her miscalculation was almost comical. Almost.
Watching her leave under security escort, I expected to feel victorious. Instead, I felt twelve again—small and lost in the suddenly too-quiet house. Then Aunt Janine handed me Mom’s old recipe book, flour dusting her sleeves as she said, “Your dad would want us to make a mess of this kitchen.”
As we baked, she confessed she’d always distrusted Cheryl. “Your father saw something different,” she admitted. Maybe he had. But in the end, he’d chosen to protect what mattered most—me, and the home where every corner still whispered with memories of his love.
