I didn’t answer Ashley’s message right away. I let it sit in my inbox like a fragile object on a shelf, something that could be real or another prop in a familiar play. Weeks passed. Deals closed. Tenants moved in and out. Life kept going, steady and solid. But every so often, I’d open her words again and feel that old ache, softened now by distance and the life I had built without them.

One evening, after walking a property with Ryan, I sat at my kitchen table—the same way I once had at Arthur’s—and finally typed: I’m glad you’re building something of your own. I wish you well. It wasn’t an invitation back into my life, just a boundary with a small, open door. Families like mine are not fixed by apologies or money. They are rebuilt, if at all, the way houses are: slowly, carefully, with better foundations and no more pretending the cracks aren’t there.