The drive to the coast took less than an hour.
I made it without turning on the radio.
Usually, I listened to the news or an old playlist Nile had liked.
That afternoon, I wanted silence.
I kept hearing Cullen's voice.
People with status.
You probably wouldn't have enjoyed it anyway.
I tried to tell myself that he had spoken carelessly.
Perhaps he had been nervous about the wedding.
Perhaps Blythe had influenced the guest list.
Perhaps there was an explanation that would make the whole thing less ugly.
I was still making excuses for him when I turned into the beach house driveway.
The first thing I noticed was the curtain in the front bedroom.
It was open.
I always left that curtain closed when I wasn't staying there because the afternoon sun faded the fabric.
I parked and walked toward the front entrance.
My key turned in the lock.
Inside, I stopped.
Four expensive suitcases stood near the wall.
Six cardboard boxes had been stacked beside them.
Someone had written labels on the boxes in thick black marker.
KITCHEN.
BEDROOM.
BATHROOM.
The handwriting wasn't mine.
I moved farther into the house.
The place smelled faintly of fresh laundry and a scented candle.
A white bathrobe hung from the bathroom door in the master bedroom.
Blythe's.
I knew it because I had seen her wearing the same robe during a visit several months earlier.
My robe had been moved into the hallway closet.
It was folded beneath a pile of towels, pushed so far back that I almost missed it.
I stood there looking at it.
It was a small thing.
A robe.
A closet.
A few boxes.
But those objects told me something I had not wanted to understand during the drive.
They hadn't come to ask whether they could move in.
They had started preparing to live there.
I walked through the kitchen.
A few unfamiliar items had been placed on the counter.
The cupboards had been opened.
One of the drawers wasn't completely shut.
I pulled it out and found several utensils arranged in a different order.
Someone had already begun making my house feel like theirs.
I went into the living room.
That was when I noticed the empty space above the fireplace.
For fourteen years, a photograph of Nile had stood on that mantel.
It wasn't an expensive photograph.
The frame was simple, dark wood with a small scratch along one corner.
Nile had been smiling in it.
He was standing outside the beach house, one hand resting on the porch railing, with the blue front door behind him.
The picture had been taken after we finished one of the hardest summers of rebuilding.
We had been tired and sunburned.
The porch still needed work.
But Nile had insisted we take a photograph because he wanted to remember the day we finally felt the house was ours.
I had kept that picture in the same place since his death.
Now it was gone.
I checked the nearby shelves.
Then the side table.
I looked behind a stack of magazines, although I knew the photograph was too large to have slipped there by accident.
Finally, I opened a drawer beneath the television.
Nothing.
I tried another drawer in the hallway.
There it was.
Face down.
The frame had been pushed beneath several takeout menus from local restaurants.
I lifted it carefully.
For a moment, I couldn't move.
The glass was intact.
The frame wasn't broken.
Someone had simply taken it off the mantel and put it where it wouldn't be seen.
I ran my thumb along the wooden edge.
I wondered whether Cullen had done it.
I wondered whether Blythe had.
I couldn't prove either one.
That uncertainty didn't make the discovery hurt less.
I returned the photograph to its place in the living room.
I straightened it twice.
Then I stepped back to make sure it was facing forward.
It was such a small act, putting a picture back where it belonged.
But I felt as though I had finally stopped waiting for someone else to tell me what mattered in my own home.
I took out my phone.
There were several people I could have called.
I could have called Cullen and demanded an explanation.
I could have called Blythe and asked why her belongings were already in my bedroom.
Instead, I contacted a professional locksmith.
I asked whether someone could come that afternoon to replace the exterior locks.
The locksmith asked whether I was the property owner.
"Yes," I said.
He asked whether I had all the necessary keys.
"I have the keys I need."
He gave me an arrival time.
I sat on the living room sofa while I waited.
The house was quiet except for the occasional sound of wind against the windows.
I looked at Nile's photograph.
For years, I had thought of the house as something we had built for our family.
That afternoon, I realized I had allowed the word family to make me careless about boundaries.
I had assumed Cullen understood the difference between being loved and being entitled to everything I owned.
Maybe I had never explained it clearly enough.
Or perhaps he had understood all along.
The locksmith arrived shortly afterward.
He worked through the exterior doors, replacing the locks one by one.
I watched him test each key before moving to the next.
The sound of metal turning in the locks seemed strangely final.
When he finished, he handed me the new keys.
"Everything should be working properly now."
I thanked him and paid the bill.
Then I looked at the suitcases and boxes.
They were still standing where I had found them.
I carried the smaller items first.
The boxes were heavier than I expected, especially the ones marked KITCHEN and BEDROOM.
I moved them to the covered porch and returned for the suitcases.
Four in total.
Six boxes.
I arranged everything neatly against the wall, where it would be protected from the weather.
I wasn't trying to damage their belongings.
I wasn't trying to humiliate them.
I wanted them to understand that their things could be kept safe without their plans becoming my responsibility.
When I finished, I took a photograph of the luggage and boxes.
I sent it to Cullen.
Then I typed a short message explaining that the exterior locks had been changed and his belongings were waiting on the porch.
I read the message once.
I didn't add an apology.
I didn't ask whether he was upset.
I pressed send.
For the first time that day, I felt calm.
Not happy.
Not relieved.
Just calm.
I picked up Nile's photograph and checked the frame one more time.
Then I returned it to the mantel.
I had no idea what Cullen would say when he saw my message.
But I knew one thing.
He would not walk through that front door simply because he had decided he could.
Click here to continue reading: PART 3: The Wedding Pictures Showed Forty-Six Smiling Guests, One Tiny House, and a Lie About Why I Was Missing
The Sunday Morning Call That Made Me Question Everything I Thought I Knew About My Only Son
Part 2 of 24
