Then I walked away.
Not because I forgave him.
I didn’t.
But standing inside Mom’s house, I suddenly understood something.
I had spent weeks thinking about how to make Dad and Lisa remember their wedding day.
Mom had spent her final months thinking about how complete strangers might survive some of the hardest days of their lives.
My revenge suddenly felt very small compared with what she had done.
In the back bedroom, one of the volunteers was struggling to stretch a fitted sheet over a mattress.
I stopped in the doorway.
“Need some help?”
She laughed.
“Desperately.”
I walked over and took the opposite corner.
Behind us, I could still hear Dad and Lisa arguing quietly.
I stopped paying attention.
Later, while carrying a stack of clean towels toward the kitchen, I passed the front entrance.
There was still a pale rectangle in the paint where the old brass numbers had hung for years.
