The Lights Weren't Supposed to Turn On By Themselves

I didn't give her the fight she wanted. I walked out to the porch instead, where my mother was waiting with the excuse I already knew was coming.

"She's under a lot of stress," Mom said quietly.

"She just inherited a multimillion-dollar condo," I said. "What exactly is stressing her?"

Mom flinched. She didn't answer. She went back inside and shut the door, gently, like closing it softly made it hurt less.

Over the next few days I watched the whole family quietly rearrange itself around Skylar's comfort, the way it always had. Mom suggested Skylar should "help manage" the cabin property too, since she had connections in real estate. Skylar texted me photos of her new marble countertops with captions like hope the cabin has running water lol.

Then Mom called again, her voice smaller than I'd heard it in years, and asked me to just go see it. Just one night. "Your father wanted you to have that place for a reason," she said.

I almost said no. Something in me wouldn't let it go.

I drove north through six hours of winding two-lane highway until the radio stations turned to static and the towns turned to nothing, and by the time my headlights found the dirt road leading up into the Ozarks, my grief had gone cold and steady, the way it does right before something changes.

The cabin sat at the end of that road like a held breath. Sagging porch. Dark windows. A roofline that looked one bad winter from giving up entirely. This was what Skylar had laughed at over funeral flowers. This was the joke.

I climbed the porch steps, boots creaking on boards soft with age, and slid the old key into the lock. It turned smooth, too smooth for a house nobody had touched in decades.