I sat back on my heels, the faded carpet pressing patterns into my skin, and gently opened the envelope. The smell of old paper rose up, mingling with the faint scent of coffee in the apartment. Inside, neatly stacked and clipped together, was the trust document my mother had created three months before she died. Behind it, the deed to the beach house.
I traced a finger over my mother’s name.
She’d known. She’d known Victoria too well.
In my mind, I was twenty again, curled up in a chair beside Mom’s hospital bed. The room had smelled like antiseptic and stale air, but she’d insisted we open the window a crack so she could “pretend the breeze was ocean air.” Her voice had been weak, but her eyes—always sharp, always clear—were fixed on me with fierce intensity.
“Alexandra,” she’d said, taking my hand. Her fingers had felt so light, like brittle leaves. “The beach house is our legacy. That place is more than wood and nails. Your grandparents built it with their own hands. They brought me there when I was a baby. I said my vows to your father on that porch. We brought you home there your first summer.”