I was nineteen when Dad announced that Amanda would be moving in. Mom had been gone less than a year. There was still a dent in the couch cushion where she used to sit, still a mug with a tiny chip on the rim at the back of the cupboard that I couldn’t bring myself to throw away. Her perfume lingered in the hallway if you opened the right closet. Grief had turned our house into a museum of almosts and used-to-bes.

Recovery didn't happen overnight, but for the first time in a year, time moved forward instead of backward.

Evelyn stayed at the house for six weeks. She managed my physical therapy appointments, brought in a proper chef to handle our meals, and took over the household finances with an iron fist.

Dad was forced to take a leave of absence from his job to attend court-mandated family counseling with me. It was brutal, painful work. There were shouting matches, long silences, and tears spilled across the therapist's office as he was forced to confront the sheer extent of his neglect and the way he had allowed Amanda to desecrate my mother’s memory.

He didn't get off easy. Evelyn ensured that a formal legal agreement was drawn up, placing my half-ownership of the house into a protected trust that he could never touch or borrow against.

By the time mid-summer arrived, my cast was off.

My left arm was thin and pale, requiring weeks of physical therapy to regain its strength, and I walked with a slight limp that my doctor assured me would fade with time. But I was standing on my own two feet again.

One warm Saturday afternoon, Dad and I sat together on the back patio—the same patio where the cedar beam had crushed my leg three months earlier. The broken wood had been cleared away, replaced by a simple garden bed planted with white hydrangeas—my mother’s favorite flowers.

“I spoke to the university yesterday,” Dad said quietly, setting down his coffee mug. “Your tuition for the fall semester is completely taken care of. I paid it out of my savings account.”

I looked at him, nodding slowly. “Thank you, Dad.”

He looked down at his hands, his knuckles white. “I know 'sorry' doesn't fix what happened, Ruth. I know I failed you when you needed me most. I was so caught up in my own grief, so desperate not to be alone, that I let a snake into our home.”

“She was a snake, Dad,” I said softly. “But you were the one who opened the door.”

He closed his eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “I know. And I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make it up to you.”