Chapter 10 - THE LAST LEGACY
A year had passed since the fortyth day.
I stood in the living room of the house,
the walls now painted a soft,
warm cream.
The roof was fixed.
The furnace hummed quietly in the basement.
My mother was in the kitchen,
humming a song as she made tea.
We had reached a truce.
She knew I was the one who provided the roof over her head.
She knew I was the one who checked her blood pressure.
She knew I was the one who was still there.
Michael and Sarah hadn't called once.
Not on her birthday.
Not on Christmas.
They were too busy struggling with the reality of their own choices.
Michael was working two jobs to pay off the debts he had hidden.
Sarah had moved into a small apartment,
selling the gold bracelets to pay her rent.
They were finally learning what it meant to "not keep score."
Because when you don't keep score,
you eventually run out of points.
I went back to my apartment that evening.
The red wardrobe was still there,
now polished and restored.
I had fixed the broken leg.
I had repainted it a soft,
deep mahogany.
It didn't groan when I opened the doors anymore.
I kept my own journals inside now.
I kept my own notebooks.
I kept the deed to my future.
I sat at my desk and opened the small black ledger.
I turned to the last page,
the one where my father had stopped writing.
I picked up a pen.
I wrote:
Estate accounted for.
Funeral paid.
House restored.
Legacy secured.
I closed the book and felt the finality of it.
I wasn't the daughter who accepted less anymore.
I was the woman who had taken everything that was rightfully mine.
I looked at the red wardrobe,
the light reflecting off the new paint.
It was a beautiful thing.
A strong thing.
A thing that held the truth.
I went to bed and slept the deep,
peaceful sleep of someone who was no longer in the corner.
May you like
I was in the center of my own life.
And I was the one holding the brick.
