Derek ha chiamato prima che arrivassi al mio appartamento.

La sua voce era cauta e comprensiva. Mi ha offerto le sue condoglianze, mi ha chiesto come stessi, poi ha gradualmente virato verso la questione della successione. Ha detto che la procedura sembrava semplice e che sperava che avremmo affrontato tutto insieme.

Poi ci ha suggerito di vendere la casa il più velocemente possibile.

“Il mercato è in un buon momento”, ha detto. “E onestamente, dividere il ricavato in tre parti sarebbe significativo per tutti noi.”

«Sarebbe importante anche per me», risposi. «Ma voglio prendermi un po’ di tempo per pensarci.»

«Certo», disse. «Assolutamente. Nessuna fretta.»

Il silenzio che seguì suggerì che lui credesse che ci fosse.

Amber texted instead of calling, exactly as I’d expected. She said she was thinking of me, hoped we could discuss the next steps soon, added a heart emoji, then followed it with a message mentioning that she’d been looking at the housing market and that it seemed like a favorable time to sell.

I appreciated the heart emoji, even if it was immediately followed by market research.

That evening I answered neither of them.

Instead, I sat in my apartment with a bowl of leftover soup and the folder from Gerald, thinking about the gray colonial, the red front door, and the little creek that had supposedly swallowed my shoe.

Eventually, I got in my car and drove to the house.

I still had my key because I’d been managing Dad’s affairs during his illness. It slipped into the lock as easily as always, though somehow I hadn’t been certain it would. I stood quietly inside the dark entryway before reaching for the light switch.

The house still smelled like him—wood, sawdust, overly strong coffee, and the familiar scent of a home lived in comfortably by one person who cared more about living there than updating it.

I switched on the lights and slowly walked through every room.

Not to inspect anything.

Just to be there.

The kitchen still had the rooster-patterned tiles my grandmother had chosen decades earlier, tiles Dad had never bothered replacing because he liked them. The living room still held his armchair angled perfectly for his aching hip. In the basement, every tool remained neatly outlined on the pegboard exactly where it belonged.

His bedroom was untouched.

His reading glasses rested on the nightstand.

A library book was three weeks overdue.

His robe still hung behind the bedroom door.

I sat on the edge of his bed and looked at it.

Dad had always shown up.

When I needed appendix surgery, he’d driven forty minutes to sit beside me even after I insisted it was only a minor operation. He helped me move twice. After one painful breakup, he simply sat across from me at the kitchen table and listened without offering advice. Every Tuesday evening for twelve years, he called because Tuesday was the day he always called, and I hadn’t realized how much comfort that routine gave me until it disappeared.

I sat there with those memories until the silence felt almost familiar.

Then I went home and finally slept.

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