And that was it, really. The entire story in one sentence.
It was never an asset.
Not to my father, who learned too late that peace must be defended or somebody more aggressive will reclassify it.
Not to my mother, who had wanted nothing more scandalous than a kettle on a stove and waves outside her bedroom.
Not to me, who bought the place not to display success but to return something to the people who had spent decades spending themselves on everyone else.
And eventually, after enough damage and enough truth, not even to Claire, who finally understood the difference between being included in a family and being entitled to consume what another member built for its healing.
It was a home.
A home with salt on the windows, and gulls that screamed too early, and a bench my father built slightly crooked because the first one “looked too store-bought,” and herb pots my mother rearranged with unreasonable intensity every spring, and a guest room that stayed a guest room because some spaces should not be optimized into revenue streams by people who don’t understand the cost of rest.