My stepmother called just as the day was folding into evening, her voice dripping with a satisfaction so sharp I could almost see the smile stretching across her face. She told me, with deliberate precision, that I would never set foot in the family beach house again—that every lock had already been changed.

I climbed the porch steps slowly, my pulse so loud in my ears it made the morning feel underwater. Diana stood off to the side, breathing through her nose, her eyes bright with a kind of hatred that had long ago stopped pretending to be manners. Up close, I could smell her perfume—white flowers and something powdery and expensive. Underneath it, I caught the faint scent of the house itself slipping through the opening door: old wood, sea salt, lemon oil, dust warmed by morning sun.

Home.

Not the clean, simple home of childhood memory. Not untouched. Not preserved in amber. But home enough to hit me like grief.

I stepped across the threshold and almost stumbled.