“The party is in my house,” I answered.
“And the papers that prove this is my house are missing.”
Amber smiled the same calm smile she had worn at the wedding.
“We moved some things while you were gone,” she said.
“The cottage was too small once Ethan started school.”
“You never told me you were moving into the main house.”
“You were at sea,” David said.
“We tried to call.”
“You knew I had no phone.”
“Exactly,” Amber said.
“We handled it.”
One of the guests a man I had never seen cleared his throat.
“Maybe we should go,” he muttered.
Amber’s sister began stacking plates as if the conversation were already over.
I walked past them to the living room.
The banner sagged at one end and the balloons bumped against the ceiling I had painted myself.
My husband’s photograph still hung above the fireplace but someone had moved the frame an inch to the left.
I noticed the small change because I had straightened it every morning for eight years.
“Ethan,” I said gently.
“Come here.”
He pulled against Amber’s hand and she let him go.
He ran the last few steps and wrapped his arms around my legs.
His hair smelled like cake frosting and the cedar soap I kept in the guest bathroom.
“I missed you Grandma,” he whispered.
“I missed you too,” I said and my throat tightened.
Amber watched us with her arms folded.
“He has school tomorrow,” she said.
“We should wrap this up.”
I looked at David.
“I want my documents back tonight.”
“They’re safe,” he said.
“We put them in a better place.”
“Show me.”
He did not move.
The remaining guests gathered their coats and left without saying goodbye.
Amber’s sister carried the charcuterie board into the kitchen and the wooden board scraped against the counter.
When the door finally closed the house felt larger and emptier at the same time.
Ethan still clung to me.
David poured himself another drink.
“You can’t just walk in and start accusing people,” he said.
“I walked into my own living room.”
“You gave me the key,” he answered.
“I gave you the key to check the pipes and bring in the mail.”
“Not to host parties and empty my closets.”
Amber set a glass of water on the island and pushed it toward me as if I were a guest who needed calming.
“Margaret you have been alone out here for a long time,” she said.
“We thought it would be better for everyone if we stayed.”
“Better for whom?”
“For Ethan,” she said.
“He needs a stable home.”
“This was stable,” I said.
“Until you moved the papers.”
David rubbed his forehead.
“Mom the LLC paperwork was confusing.”
“We talked to someone.”
“Who?”
“A friend of Amber’s,” he said.
“A real-estate attorney.”
The cold feeling returned.
“Did you sign anything?”
“Nothing important.”
“Did you sign anything with my name on it?”
He did not answer.
Ethan looked up at me.
“Mommy said you might not come back,” he said.
“She said the boat was very far.”
I knelt so we were eye to eye.
“I always come back,” I told him.
Amber’s voice sharpened.
“Don’t confuse him.”
“I am not the one who is confusing him.”
I stood and walked to the hallway closet again.
The running shoes were still there.
I picked them up and set them on the floor outside the door.
“These do not belong on that shelf,” I said.
“Put them wherever you want,” Amber replied.
“The shelf is empty because we needed the space.”
“For what?”
“For our things.”
I opened the next door the linen closet.
My towels were gone.
In their place were plastic bins labeled ETHAN TOYS and AMBER CLOTHES in neat black marker.
I closed the door and opened the one after that.
My winter coats had been pushed to one side.
A row of David’s jackets hung where they had never hung before.
“You moved in,” I said.
“While I was gone you moved in.”
“The cottage leaked,” David said.
“We told you that last year.”
“You told me the roof needed work.”
“You did not tell me you were transferring the mail.”
Amber crossed her arms.
“The post office form was simple,” she said.
“We filled it out so nothing would pile up.”
“You redirected my mail to the cottage and then you moved into the house.”
“We live here now,” she said.
“Ethan goes to school from here.”
“His friends come here.”
“This is his home.”
“This is my home,” I said.
“I built it.”
David set his glass down.
“Mom you are sixty-eight,” he said.
“The stairs are steep.”
“The driveway floods in winter.”
“We thought it made sense.”
“You thought it made sense to take the deed.”
“The deed is in the safe,” he said.
“The one behind the painting.”
I turned toward the fireplace.
The painting of the harbor was still there.
I lifted it and the safe door was closed.
The keypad glowed green.
I entered the code I had used for twelve years.
The light turned red.
“You changed the code,” I said.
“We updated it,” Amber answered.
“For security.”
“Whose security?”
“Everyone’s.”
I replaced the painting and faced them.
Ethan had wandered to the window and was pressing his forehead against the glass watching the fog roll in.
“I want the new code,” I said.
“And I want the folder.”
David looked at the floor.
“Amber has the folder,” he said.
“She put it in a storage unit.”
“A storage unit,” I repeated.
“In town,” Amber said.
“We can get it tomorrow.”
“We will get it tonight.”
“The unit closes at six,” she said.
“It is already past seven.”
I checked the clock above the stove.
She was right.
Outside the wind had picked up and the first drops of rain hit the terrace stones.
“Then we go first thing in the morning,” I said.
