My sister announced in the family group chat that I was officially banned from the reunion—and made it clear no one was to tell me where it would be. I didn’t argue. I didn’t reply. I simply opened the location pin… and laughed so hard I had to cover my mouth.

My mother will take the top-floor master suite, naturally—the one with the private balcony, cathedral ceiling, and soaking tub facing the dunes. Bridget will choose the second-best room, the one with the vanity light I installed because I know what warm front-facing light does to a face in a mirror. Kyle will go for the bunk room on the main level because it’s closest to the television and the sectional and requires the least adult exertion to occupy.

I roll my window down an inch.

The sound reaches me all at once.

Music.

Laughter.

The slap of a cooler being dragged over hardwood.

The rising shrill edge of my mother’s voice: “Be careful with that! Don’t scratch the floor. This place is worth millions.”

I smile despite myself.

She’s not wrong.

The last appraisal came in at just over two-point-four million.

And what delights me most is that she is suddenly reverent toward the very thing she would have treated as family property the minute she learned it was mine.

I open the home security app and pull up the living room camera feed.

There they are.