Chapter 8 - The Empty Guest Room
Sunday afternoon brought brilliant sunshine streaming through the large bay windows of my dining room.
I sat at the head of the mahogany table, enjoying a quiet cup of coffee and reading the Sunday edition of the Columbus Dispatch. The house was quiet, peaceful, and entirely my own.
The two guest rooms upstairs—the ones Vanessa had fought so bitterly over, the ones her parents had planned to occupy—were clean, quiet, and empty.
They weren't symbols of loneliness anymore. They were symbols of freedom.
My home wasn't a hotel for ungrateful opportunists or a launching pad for real estate scams. It was a fortress built on love, hard work, and unyielding boundaries.
May you like
I took a slow sip of my coffee, looked out at the blooming garden, and smiled.
For the first time in five years, the house felt entirely full.
