“Wow,” she said, pulling off her sunglasses. “It looks smaller than I remember.”
I folded my arms. “It’s the same size.”
She walked past me without asking, straight into the house. My youngest, Noah, only five, sat on the floor with toy tractors. She barely glanced at him.
For three days before the funeral, she moved through every room like an appraiser—opening cabinets, tapping walls, making notes on her phone.
“This can go,” she muttered in the dining room. “Nobody wants dark wood anymore; it’s outdated.”
In the barn, she wrinkled her nose. “The smell alone will scare off buyers.”
“Buyers?” I asked sharply.
Linda gave me a tight smile. “Daniel, be realistic. This land is worth a fortune now. There’s lake access on the north end. Developers would fight over it.”
I felt something cold slide down my spine. “This is our home.”
She laughed softly, ignoring my kids as they played nearby. “It was my dad’s home.”
