Owner.
It had always been in my name. Always. They had never owned a single brick of this place, no matter how confidently Chloe gave orders in the kitchen.
I held the deed and felt something in my spine straighten.
I picked up my phone. My hands shook, but not from fear. From a feeling I hadn’t let myself touch in years, one that took me a moment to recognize.
Determination.
I stared at the contact I hadn’t called in fifteen years.
Caroline.
My sister’s name looked almost foreign on the screen. The last time we spoke, the conversation ended with both of us shouting, words thrown like stones. I had told myself I didn’t need her. I had told myself I was protecting Kevin by cutting her out. I had told myself a dozen things that now felt flimsy.
I pressed call before I could overthink it.
It rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
Then a click.
“Hello?”
Her voice hadn’t changed much. Still careful. Still steady. A little lower than I remembered, as if time had settled into her.
“Caroline,” I said, and my voice surprised me with how even it sounded. “It’s Eleanor. I need your help.”
Silence stretched long enough that I heard my own breathing.
“Eleanor?” Caroline said finally. There was disbelief in her tone, and something guarded. “What happened?”
I looked down the hallway toward the living room, toward the gray sofa, toward the crates stacked against my rocking chair. I thought of Chloe’s voice telling me to clean. I thought of Kevin’s half-hearted hug. I thought of Lily’s puzzled eyes when Chloe yanked her away.
“What happened,” I said slowly, “is that I stopped being myself. And I’m going to get myself back.”
Caroline didn’t interrupt. She didn’t rush. She let the words sit, which was exactly what I needed.
“Tell me,” she said softly.
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