part 7
Spring arrived in Virginia with an explosion of pink dogwood blossoms and warm afternoon breezes that smelled of wet earth and newly cut grass.
Life without my family had turned out to be astonishingly quiet, productive, and healing. Without the constant drain of toxic emotional obligations, my freelance design business flourished. I landed two major corporate accounts that doubled my monthly income, giving me the financial security to renovate Callum’s old workshop in the backyard into a proper home office.
Wren’s grades at school improved, and the nervous habit of pulling her shoulders inward disappeared entirely. She laughed more, made new friends in the neighborhood, and spent her Saturday mornings riding her pink bicycle up and down the paved driveway while I sat on the front porch with a cup of coffee.
We heard news about my family through the local grapevine—small-town gossip travels fast, especially when pride is involved.
According to Mrs. Higgins, our nosy next-door neighbor whose sister lived three doors down from my parents, the household had undergone a massive, humiliating reality check.
With the house mortgage cleared by my final payment, my parents no longer faced homelessness, but the shock of that Christmas night had permanently fractured their social standing. Talia and Beckett had tried to lean on my parents for financial help with their country club dues, only to discover that my mother and father had locked down their remaining retirement funds and refused to spend another dime on their golden-child daughter's lifestyle inflation.
Talia and Beckett were reportedly fighting constantly, their luxurious facade cracking under the weight of real financial accountability.
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As for my parents, they had tried to drive over to my house twice in February, hoping to catch me off guard and secure more money for their Hawaiian cruise. Both times, they found themselves staring at our locked front gate and a security camera that politely informed them via intercom that visitors were not welcome without an appointment—an appointment that would never, under any circumstances, be granted.
They finally got the message. They stopped coming.
