I stood in front of my pantry with my hand on the wooden handle, and for almost a full minute

The following week passed in near-total silence. Brooke refused to speak to me, moving through the house like a ghost. Miles tried once or twice to appeal to my emotions, arguing that apartments were expensive and that renting would hurt their wedding savings.

“If your wedding savings depended entirely on my retirement fund and selling my house, Miles, you weren’t ready to get married in the first place,” I told him gently during one of our brief kitchen encounters.

He didn’t have a rebuttal for that. The reality check was slow, painful, but unmistakably taking root. He began calling local apartment complexes during his lunch breaks. He started looking at his own bank accounts—really looking at them—without Brooke’s rosy spreadsheets masking the numbers.

On Friday, a rental truck pulled up into the driveway. Brooke’s father had come to help her move her belongings into a modest two-bedroom apartment she had hastily leased across town.

As boxes were being taped and carried out through the front door, Brooke paused by the front entryway. She looked around the living room one last time, her expression a mix of bitterness and disbelief.

“You could have had a family,” she whispered bitterly. “Instead, you chose to die alone in this empty house with your memories.”

“I’m not alone,” I said, looking out the window toward the backyard where the two apple trees stood tall and strong in the afternoon sun. “And my memories are a lot warmer than your blueprints.”

With a sharp turn, she walked out the door and slammed it behind her. Miles lingered for a moment, looking at me with a heavy, complicated expression.

“Dad… I’m sorry,” he murmured.