I was sitting at my kitchen island with a cup of black coffee and a spreadsheet open on my iPad when the U-Haul pulled into my driveway. Not social media, not Netflix. A spreadsheet.
That sentence alone explains why my younger sister Megan had always thought I was clinically dead inside. The house was quiet except for the ceiling fan and the waves outside. I owned a beach house on the South Carolina coast, about three blocks from the water, inside one of those gated communities where the HOA sends violation notices if your trash can stays visible longer than twelve minutes.
I liked it that way. Everything had a place. Everything worked.
The diesel engine tore through the Saturday morning air and my blood pressure climbed before I had consciously registered why. I looked up from the iPad just as a twenty-foot U-Haul rolled into my driveway like it was arriving for a military operation. Air brakes hissed.
Engine rumbled. I stared at it over the rim of my coffee mug, checked the clock. 9:02 a.m.
Then the front door unlocked. Not knocked on. Unlocked.
With the old emergency spare key. I set my mug down slowly while the door swung open, and my mother walked inside like she owned the property. Diane didn’t look at me at first.
She walked straight into the living room in oversized sunglasses and a linen outfit that probably cost more than my first car payment, scanning the vaulted ceilings, the floating shelves, the ocean furniture. Megan followed behind her carrying an iced coffee the size of a flower vase and talking into her phone. “Guys, wait till you see this lighting,” Megan said into the camera.
“This is literally going to heal my nervous system.”
Megan was thirty-four years old and still spoke like an unemployed freshman at an art school. My mother pointed toward the hallway leading to the master suite. “This natural light is perfect for Megan’s new lifestyle blog,” she announced.
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