I bought my parents a $650,000 cottage by the ocean for their fortieth anniversary because I wanted them to finally know what peace felt like.

My father admitted Daniel had asked twice before about “monetizing unused periods.” My mother admitted Claire had once suggested the house would be “wasted” once my parents got too old to enjoy the stairs. I admitted I had written the trust so tightly because I suspected something exactly like this might happen one day. That last part hurt them.

“You expected this?” my mother asked.

“Not the locks. Not the police. But pressure? Yes.”

My father looked ashamed. “From our own daughter.”

“From need,” I said. “And entitlement. And a man who thinks proximity gives him rights.”

My mother sat down hard in the dining chair. “What did we do wrong?”

That question, from parents, is one of the saddest in the language.

I took a long breath. “You loved her too quickly out of consequences.”

My father said nothing because he knew it was true.