When my mother passed, she left me one treasure above all else: her lake house. It wasn’t just a building—it was her sanctuary, a place of art, peace, and endless summer memories. Every painting, every little detail reflected her soul. To me, it was sacred.
I spent countless childhood summers there. She painted landscapes while I skipped stones on the lake. On rainy days, we curled up in the window seat with cocoa and blankets, listening to the rain as she read aloud. One unforgettable summer at fifteen, we woke to blueberry pancakes on the porch, watching the sunrise splash gold across the water.
“This house saved me,” she said once, roasting marshmallows. “When life got hard, I came here to remember who I really was.”
When she died, I was sixteen. By twenty-one, the house was mine, and I made it clear: no one else could touch it. No rentals, no parties, no friends—just preservation of her memory.
Then came Carla—my dad’s new wife. Everything about her felt fake: her plastic smile, surgically perfect features, and a cruel attitude toward my mom’s memory. She threw away my mother’s quilts, mocked her art, and hosted snide dinner parties where friends ridiculed my mother’s love for gardening and crystals.
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