Chapter 3: The Shared Roof
The drive back to the beach house took ten minutes, every mile dragging under the weight of the dead end I had just hit at the real estate office. When I pulled into the shell driveway, my mother's sedan was parked squarely in the center, gleaming under the bright afternoon sun.
I found her inside the kitchen area, unpacking a small cardboard box of groceries she must have brought from home—canned coffee, a bag of apples, a carton of eggs. She had removed her white cardigan, leaving her in the light blue button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled neatly up to her forearms.
She didn't turn around as the front door clicked shut behind me, but she heard the steps on the hardwood floor.
"Well?" she asked, her voice carrying over the low hum of the refrigerator. "Did the agency straighten it out?"
I walked over to the kitchen island, leaning my back against the counter and looking out the window at the endless stretch of gray-blue ocean meeting the pale sand. "There was a server migration in January. The digital portal didn't sync with the master ledger."
She paused, a red apple still in her hand, and looked over her shoulder at me. "So the booking is valid?"
"Your physical agreement is valid," I said, letting out a long, slow breath that emptied the last of my defensive energy. "The digital one is a ghost. The clerk said the trust recognizes the paper copy."
She set the apple down on the counter with a soft thud. For a moment, the silence between us wasn't combative; it was heavy, filled with the awkward realization that neither of us had anywhere else to go and neither of us was willing to pack up and drive three hours back home in defeat.
"I didn't do it to push you out," she said quietly, her eyes dropping to the granite countertop.
"I know," I murmured, staring at the dark grain of the wood. "You just didn't think to check."
"I needed quiet," she said, her voice dropping into a register I rarely heard—vulnerable, stripped of the unyielding armor she usually wore in public. "The house... it's the only place where the noise stops."
I looked over at her, seeing the slight tremor in her hands as she smoothed down the cuffs of her shirt. The generational wall didn't crumble, but for the first time all day, a stone shifted.
May you like
"There's enough room," I said softly, breaking the stillness. "We can share it for a few days. Provided you don't reorganize my side of the closet."
A faint, tired shadow of a smile touched the corner of her mouth. "No promises on the closet," she said, though the sharp edge of the command was gone. "Put your bag in the west bedroom. I'll make coffee."
