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.

The first page was a letter.

Rebecca, if you are reading this, then Diana has finally done exactly what I believed she would do the moment she first set foot in this house and looked at it not like a home but like a prize. I am sorry for that. I am even sorrier that I may not be here to stand in the doorway and stop her myself.

My vision blurred instantly.

I swallowed and kept reading.

You will be tempted to doubt yourself. Do not. You have always been kinder than the people who mistake kindness for weakness. This is one of the reasons I worried about leaving you alone with them. Your father loves comfort more than conflict, and comfort in the wrong hands can make cowards of people who once meant well. Diana understands this about him and has built her life around it.

The room seemed to tilt slightly. I could feel Diana’s anger radiating from across the kitchen, but she did not interrupt. Perhaps even she knew that to interrupt a dead woman’s letter would look as ugly as it was.