“Why?”

He folded his hands together.

“Because equal shares mean all three of you must agree on what to do with it. You can sell it and divide the proceeds. One sibling can buy out the others. You can rent it and split the income. But none of those options can proceed without consensus.”

“And if we can’t agree?”

“Then eventually a court can compel a partition sale,” he said. “But that process is slow, expensive, and tends to produce outcomes nobody finds satisfying.”

I looked back at the folder.

“Do Derek and Amber know about this structure?” I asked.

“They have been notified of the basic terms,” he replied. “I believe they may be calling you.”

Driving home that October afternoon, I kept glancing at the folder on the passenger seat, feeling the weight of responsibility settle deeper with every mile.

Derek called before I reached my apartment.

His voice was careful and sympathetic. He offered his condolences, asked how I was doing, then gradually shifted toward the estate. He said the process seemed straightforward and that he hoped we’d work through everything together.

Then he suggested we sell the house as quickly as possible.

“The market is good right now,” he said. “And honestly, splitting the proceeds three ways would be meaningful for all of us.”

“It would be meaningful for me too,” I replied. “But I want to take some time to think about it.”

“Of course,” he said. “Absolutely. No rush.”

The silence afterward suggested he believed there was.

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.