When my mom d!ed, I was ten. My dad did what he could; he really did.

He made French toast on Sundays, left notes in my lunchbox, and cried when he thought I wasn’t watching.

He was broken from the grief… but he was still my dad.

Cherry showed up when I was 14. She wore perfume that gave me headaches and smiles that never seemed to reach her eyes when I was around. Dad thought she was warm and radiant. And to be honest, she did put on a perfect performance for him.

But I knew better. Her kindness had conditions. And I never met one of them.

Still, I tried. For him… he deserved joy.

When he d!ed five years later, it felt like the last piece of the world I knew collapsed. It was a sudden heart attack, no warning, and of course, no goodbye.

I was barely 19, just out of high school, still figuring out what to do with my gap year and how to go to the dentist alone… and now I was orphaned. I hadn’t even celebrated my birthday because it was a week after my father d!ed.

The funeral hadn’t even ended when Cherry started treating me like a guest in my childhood home. She moved through the house when it was already hers, throwing out Dad’s old magazines and replacing the framed family photos with hers.

I caught her once, scrubbing his name off the mailbox. She didn’t even flinch when she saw me watching, she just rinsed off the brush in a bucket of soapy water.

“Eleanor,” she said, her voice like the snap of a winter branch. “You’re not exactly family anymore, you know? So, it’s time to get out.”

I didn’t argue. What would’ve been the point?

So, I packed a duffel bag. In went a pair of boots, a few shirts and jeans, underwear, and toiletries. I grabbed my guitar. I walked past the coat rack where my dad’s scarf still hung, and I didn’t dare touch it.

I couldn’t.

That night, I stayed on my best friend’s couch.

“Of course, you can stay here, Elish,” Katie said. “My home is yours.”

She left a blanket and a glass of water on the side table. We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t have to.

I lay there, staring at the ceiling fan, my hands clasped tight on my stomach to keep me from unraveling. My grief wasn’t loud… but it was heavy. It sat in my chest like wet cement.

But before I closed my eyes, I made one call to my dad’s older sister, Jamines.

She picked up on the first ring and gasped at the appropriate moments during my story. I don’t remember everything I said. I just remember those few gasps followed by silence on the other end.

It was the kind of silence that wraps around you when someone is listening not just to your words but to what you can’t say.

Finally, she spoke.

“I’ll take care of it, darling,” she said. “Are you okay at Katie’s or must I fetch you?”

“I’m fine,” I sighed. “But… help me, please.”

“Of course, Elish. Go back tomorrow morning and get the rest of your things. I’ll meet you there.”

The next day, I pulled up to the house I’d lived in since I was born… the one with the chipped front steps and the lopsided birdfeeder that my dad had made. I remember painting it with him, getting paint all over us.

But this time, the house looked different.

Five black SUVs lined the curb like they were filming a crime movie. Two men in suits stood by the front door. One checked his watch, and the other didn’t move at all. If I didn’t catch him blinking, I would have thought he was a robot.

My heart pounded.

Had Cherry called for security to keep me out?

I stepped out of the car, my shoulders tense, and rang the bell.

The door opened, and Cherry stood there, pale and stiff like someone had drained the life out of her.

“Oh! You’re here!” she said, her voice suddenly sugar-coated. “I was just… just about to call you, sweetheart.”

Sweetheart?

I almost laughed.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “I just came to get my things.”

Before she could answer, Jamines stepped into view from the hallway, wearing heels that clicked across the driveway and a slate-gray suit that fit her perfectly. She held a folder in her hands.

“Perfect timing,” she said with a smile sharp enough to cut marble. “Come on, both of you. We were just about to clear some things up. My legal team are already set up. Right, Cherry?”

I followed them both inside. Cherry trailed behind me, her mouth opening and closing like she couldn’t decide if she wanted to scream, cry, or pull out someone’s hair.

In the living room, two lawyers sat around the table, one older, calm, reading aloud from a stack of papers, the other flipping through legal pads with the ease of someone who’d done this a thousand times.

“This is ridiculous,” Cherry snapped, pacing the floor. “You can’t just come in here and…”

Jamines raised a hand.

“Sit,” she commanded. “Stop talking, Cherry. Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be.”

Cherry sat. Barely.

I hovered near the entryway, confused and anxious, trying to make sense of the room filled with suits and tension.

“What is this? What’s going on?” I asked quietly.

Jamines turned to me, her face softening.

“Your father never added Cherry to the deed. He placed this house and all the land into a trust… in your name, Elish. He did it just before your 18th birthday. He just didn’t want Cherry to know. But he didn’t speak to you about it… because he wasn’t supposed to go so suddenly. This was something that he was only going to mention on his de@thbed, darling.”

“You mean… the house is mine?” I gasped.

I remembered celebrating my 18th birthday the previous year. My father had looked at me with such pride. He smiled when I told him that I was taking a gap year after high school and nodded. He told me that he understood.

But I didn’t know that in the background, he was planning for my future. A future without him.

The trust had only resurfaced now, when Aunt Jamines remembered and needed to force Cherry out.

“That’s absurd,” Cherry said as she let out a harsh laugh. “Thomas would never do that without telling me!”

One of the lawyers slid a folder across the table toward her.

“This is a certified copy of the trust, ma’am,” he said calmly. “You were permitted temporary residence under the terms of the trust… but now that the beneficiary has come of age and revoked permission, you no longer have a legal claim to remain.”

“You can’t just k!ck me out,” Cherry sputtered.

“You have one hour to collect your personal belongings,” the lawyer added. “After that, any items left behind will be considered abandoned property.”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The air in the room was thick and electric.

The house I’d cried in, grown up in, even been k!cked out of… was mine?

“This isn’t over,” Cherry stood shaking.

One of the lawyers walked over and handed her a checklist of approved items. Personal clothing. Toiletries and nothing more.

A man in a black suit stood silently near the staircase, arms crossed.

“Who are these people? And why are there five SUVs outside?” I leaned toward Jamines and whispered.

My father’s sister barely glanced up from her folder.

“Private security,” she said. “The owner is a really good friend of mine. I didn’t trust Cherry to go quietly.”

Of course, she didn’t. I didn’t expect Cherry to go quietly, either.

Cherry huffed up the stairs, muttering to herself.

“Hurry up,” Aunt Jamines called after her.

At one point, she tried to slam the bedroom door, but the security guy opened it again, watching as she packed in stiff silence.

I stood in the kitchen, gripping the edge of the counter, the memory of my dad laughing as he burned pancakes playing in the back of my mind.

“They’re… crispy, Elish,” he’d said, snorting through his laughter. “I’m sure they’ll be fine with some whipped cream and honey?”

It took Cherry 47 minutes to come back down, lugging two overstuffed suitcases behind her. Her face was blotchy, her mouth tight, but her eyes were glass-clear and shining. She looked like she’d been holding back tears she didn’t deserve to cry.

She paused by the front door and then turned halfway around like she had something to say, maybe an apology or a final dig… or something scripted to make herself feel better.

But she didn’t.

She just shook her head, lowered her eyes, and walked out into the sunlight like a ghost. One of the black SUVs rolled behind her, crawling down the street like a silent escort.

I stood in the doorway, watching her disappear. After a moment, I went into the kitchen.

Aunt Jamines moved with quiet grace, crossing the kitchen to pour two glasses of water. She handed me one without a word, and we sat down at the dining table where I used to do my homework while Dad stirred soup on the stove or tried to recreate a curry that my mom used to love.

“Are you okay, darling?” Aunt Jamines asked.

I nodded, but I think it was more habit than truth.

“I think so,” I said.

We sat in the stillness. The refrigerator hummed. Outside, a bird called out once and was answered from somewhere up the street.

“You know, I really miss your mom, Elish,” she said. “Especially that pecan pie of hers. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I’m horr!ble at baking but I think we should try and bake it.”

I smiled.

“We can definitely do that. Dad kept Mom’s recipe book. It should be in the cupboard under the kettle.”

We found the recipe book and got to baking.

“I always hated her,” Aunt Jamines said suddenly. “I know it’s a loaded statement, Elish. But it’s true. Cherry just… my spirit didn’t sit well the first day I met her. She tried to make herself comfortable in my kitchen. But your dad… I guess he saw something in her that we didn’t. Or maybe he didn’t want to see what we did.”

I mixed the eggs into the flour and nodded slowly.

“I feel that,” I said. “Why didn’t he tell me about the trust?”

“Because he knew Cherry would try to twist it. Or change it. Or do something horr!ble. He didn’t want you carrying the weight of defending what was already yours. And, darling, I think that my brother thought he had more time with you. His heart attack was sudden and robbed him of that. He trusted me to protect it… and you.”

I nodded again.

“I should have stepped in the moment Cherry started acting out. But I froze, Elish. I was grieving too.”

“Thank you,” I whispered, chopping pecans. “You saved me… you saved my home.”

Aunt Jamines reached over and took my hand.

“You were never going to stay down for long, Elish. You were named after my mother, Eleanor. You’re the granddaughter of the woman who built her house with her bare hands and never took nonsense from anyone!”

After that, we waited for our pie. It wasn’t as good as my mom’s, but it gave us the comfort we needed.

That night, I slept in my old room.

I didn’t unpack right away. The walls still had faded pinholes from posters I had taken down years ago, and the corners smelled faintly of lavender and dust.

I opened the closet, half expecting everything to be gone, but there it was… a box of childhood keepsakes Dad never let Cherry throw out.

I wandered the house barefoot, every floorboard creak greeting me like an old friend. In the hallway, I brushed my fingers along the light switches Dad had labeled in his messy handwriting.

In their bedroom, his bedroom, I hesitated.

The door creaked softly as I stepped in.

His closet was still full. Plaid shirts, worn hood!es, and the tan jacket he wore every fall. I buried my face in it without meaning to. It smelled like cedar, like aftershave, like mornings when he hummed while making coffee.

I didn’t cry. I just stood there, breathing it in.

Later, I sat cross-legged on my bedroom floor with my guitar across my lap. The song I’d written after the funeral came back to me slowly, like muscle memory.

It wasn’t perfect. Neither was I.

But the silence around the house felt different now. The house wasn’t haunted anymore. It was healing. And it was mine.