Chapter 4 - The Room Turns
For three seconds, nobody understood me. Jenna actually laughed. “Showing what?”
“The house.”
My father lowered his beer. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m selling it.”
The ocean kept moving behind the glass doors. The room did not. Jenna’s face tightened first, then opened into disbelief. “You can’t sell our beach house.”
“There it is again,” I said. “Our.”
My mother placed her glass on the dining table very carefully. “Mason, don’t be cruel. We’re all upset because of the little toy.”
“It wasn’t the toy.”
“Then what?”
I looked at my parents, then at Jenna. “It was watching my son get told he doesn’t belong in the one place I bought so he could feel safe.”
Jenna’s cheeks flushed. “I never said he doesn’t belong.”
“You said my kids can’t stay.”
“I meant overnight.”
“In my house.”
She looked toward my father for backup. He stepped in, as expected. “Son, selling because of a family disagreement is extreme.”
“I signed the listing agreement this morning.”
That was when the smugness finally left Jenna’s face. “You planned this?”
“I planned to sell a property my family kept treating like a shared inheritance while contributing nothing to it.”
My mother’s voice softened, dangerous in the way soft voices can be. “Think about what this does to the family.”
I looked at Eli kneeling by the broken sailboat. “I am.”
The doorbell rang.
May you like
Everyone turned toward the front hall.
My realtor was not early. She was exactly on time for the life I had decided to stop postponing.
