“What?”
“He thought you would sell it.”
I laughed.
“Seriously?”
“He hoped you would.”
“Why?”
“He said houses are only worth keeping if they help the living more than they imprison the dead.”
That sounded like Grandfather too.
I looked toward the wildflower garden.
Children ran between the paths.
A woman who had arrived that morning with two suitcases sat on a bench speaking with one of our advocates.
She had bruises beneath her sleeve.
She had nowhere safe to go.
Now she did.
Maybe Grandfather had been wrong.
Or maybe Bellweather had finally become what he meant.
Not a shrine.
Not a prize.
Not an inheritance.
A choice.
I slipped the brass key into my pocket.
Rebecca called my name from the garden.
I turned.
She was standing beneath the magnolia tree.
For one strange second, with the evening light around her, she looked so much like my grandmother that my chest hurt.
