The wood floors in my father’s Victorian house always groaned under my feet, but since he passed away, the sound felt like a lecture. I stood in the middle of the living room, arms crossed, watching Martha pack the last of the kitchenware into tattered cardboard boxes.
My father, Silas, had been gone for exactly three weeks, and the ink on the deed was barely dry. He had left the entire estate to me—his only biological daughter—while leaving Martha and her eight-month-old daughter, Rosie, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and a few pieces of furniture. It felt like a victory, a long-overdue correction for the years I felt sidelined after he married her.
