My father forgot to hang up and I heard, “It’s so dumb that it lets us stay,” so I booked his dream trip to Italy, sold my 980,000 home

They are arranged in large six ceramic vases along the balcony railing: six, each carefully selected to reflect Aunt Alice’s original garden. Mainly Rose David Austin. The same pale pink vines of Eden, the same deep crimson of Munstead Forest. I water them every morning, checking for new blooms with the same reverence Aunt Alice showed. It’s not like having three acres of garden. But it’s mine. All mine.
The studio is thriving. I used a significant portion of the house proceeds — $200,000 — to open Bennett Design Co. in downtown Dallas. Glass walls. Exposed bricks. Standing desks with two monitors. I hired two junior designers and a project manager. We specialize in UX/UI for healthcare applications and we already have reservations three months in advance. It turns out that when you’re not spending sixteen hours a day being someone’s unpaid servant, you have the energy to build something extraordinary.
My phone vibrates: it’s the new iPhone 15 Pro, the one that encapsulates my real life. It’s a message from Roman Thorne, my lawyer.
I thought you might like to know. Arthur called my office again today. Fifth time this month. He continues to threaten to sue Lone Star Holdings. I heard that his legal team served him with a harassment injunction. It has no legal basis. The house was yours. The sale was legal. Good evening, Skyler.
I smile, setting the phone down on the wrought iron table. I imagine Dad’s face, red and sweaty, probably calling from a cheap cell phone he managed to assemble. The irony is not lost on me.
According to my old neighbor Carol, who keeps texting me because she’s charmingly nosy, my parents rent a third-floor walk-up apartment in a run-down apartment building in East Austin. No elevator. Three flights of stairs. Daily. It turns out that the money they made selling those few bottles of Italian wine—the Brunello and Barolo they were so proud of, bought with undeserved money—only covered about three months of rent. When they ran out, they had to dip into the little savings left from Dad’s failing pension fund, the same fund they had decimated with their “businesses” and golf club memberships.