Chapter 13: The New House
I bought a house three weeks later.
Not the grand estate the Sterlings had expected me to live in as Ethan’s wife. A modest, sun-filled home with a backyard big enough for a child to run and a kitchen where my mother could cook without anyone watching to see if she used the right silverware. My parents moved into the guest wing without hesitation. The three of us turned the space into something warm and ordinary and ours.
Luke adjusted faster than any of us expected. He stopped asking about Grandma Sterling after the first month. He started calling my father “Papa” and my mother “Nana” with the easy affection of a child who no longer had to earn basic kindness.
One afternoon he brought me a drawing of our new house with four stick figures holding hands under a bright yellow sun. I hung it on the refrigerator and left it there.
May you like
The Sterling name appeared in the financial press less and less. The company survived, but in a smaller, more cautious form. Olivia’s social calendar grew noticeably quieter. Ethan moved to another city and took a position far below the level he had once held. Their empire had not been destroyed. It had simply been forced to live within its actual means.
I did not celebrate their diminished status. I simply lived.
