My stepmother called at 11:47 p.m. on the first night in the beach house I bought with my own money and told me she and my father were moving in the next day, that they were taking the master suite, that her daughter would get the best ocean-view room

By noon, my clothes had been moved from the master closet into a smaller room at the back of the house facing the service drive instead of the water. Not by me. By Khloe and Vanessa together, apparently, while I was in the kitchen making coffee for my father because he looked pale from the trip and I wanted to put something ordinary in his hands before the day turned fully absurd.

When I walked into the back room and saw my dresses crammed beside the ironing board cabinet, something in me should have broken.

Instead it organized itself.

I took photographs.

Every drawer Vanessa had emptied. Every garment bag now hanging in the master closet. The way Khloe’s skincare fridge sat plugged in beneath the balcony window while my suitcases remained unopened against a wall. The orchids Vanessa had placed in the foyer as if she were the hostess. The text from the previous night still glowing in my phone. The time stamps on everything.

Then I called my attorney.

Adrien Cole answered on the second ring with his usual dry clarity. “Tell me you’re calling because escrow misfiled something and not because someone’s died.”