My name.

My mother’s handwriting.

Inside was the truth.

She had known everything.

She had protected me.

She had documented it—

Including proof my father knew the house was mine.

He had signed it.

He had chosen silence.

“Do not give up what is yours,” she wrote.
“They will call it selfish. It isn’t.”

When I finished reading, the room felt different.

Like she had stepped back into it—just long enough to make everything clear.

Diana laughed weakly.
“How convenient.”

I looked at her.
“You called the police on me. You changed the locks. You tried to erase my mother.”

She lifted her chin.
“I improved this house.”

“For whom?” I asked.

“For family.”

“Yours,” I said.

My father arrived later.

Tried to explain.

“I was trying to keep the peace,” he said.

Always that phrase.