“My name,” Trevor whispered.
The dining room fell completely silent.
I opened the second folder and placed three envelopes beside the dessert plates.
“What are those?” Cassandra asked, her voice suddenly unsteady.
“Notices ending your permission to live in my house.”
She laughed nervously.
“You’re joking.”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
Our attorney stood in the doorway with a licensed process server, who calmly handed each adult a copy.
“You have seventy-two hours to vacate the property,” he said.
Trevor looked at Mom.
“You knew?”
Tears filled her eyes, but this time they weren’t tears of fear.
“I never stopped praying my daughter would come home.”
Cassandra shoved back her chair.
“You can’t throw family out!”
I met her eyes.
“Family doesn’t force a sixty-eight-year-old widow with a new knee to scrub patios, surrender her pension, and eat alone in her room.”
No one defended her.
I turned to my mother and held out the house keys.
“They were always yours.”
She wrapped trembling fingers around them and smiled through her tears.
The next morning, she walked into the backyard carrying a watering can instead of a mop.
For the first time in sixteen months, she wasn’t cleaning someone else’s mess.
She was finally tending her own roses.
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