Chapter 9
Savannah
Morning arrives whether I’m ready or not.
I wake before my alarm, unsure if I ever really slept, the house already awake before I am.
I listen to the pipes ticking, the furnace kicking into second stage, while something mechanical hums in the background.
It’s the soundtrack to winters of my childhood and a quiet reminder that time is still very much doing its job.
Aunt Carol stayed the night. We made makeshift beds on the floor like we were kids again, bundled in blankets that smelled like familiarity. It felt important to be here, one last night under this roof and to honor the house the way Mom always wanted, together, with family.
Today is paperwork.
That’s what I tell myself as I pull on jeans and a sweater, hair twisted into something passable. That’s what I repeat while I drink coffee that tastes wrong in a mug that my mom should be sipping tea out of while we game plan Christmas Day deliveries.
Just paperwork.
The realtor arrives at nine. She’s efficient, kind in a practiced way, already apologizing for the timing like that changes anything. We sit at the dining room table, the same one where my mother used to read the paper and tell me stories she pretended were casual.
I sign where she points.I initial where she circles.My name looks unfamiliar each time I write it, like it belongs to someone else, someone steadier, more capable of letting go.
“This releases the property. After today, it officially transfers.”
I hesitate for half a second too long.
Then I sign.
The pen scratches across the page, loud in the quiet room.
That’s it.
The house is no longer mine. It’s no longer ours.
The movers arrive shortly after. The truck idles at the curb, too large for the street. I stand on the porch and watch them unload dollies and blankets, cheerful in the way people are when this is just a job to them.
Aunt Carol hovers nearby, giving directions, answering questions I can’t bring myself to engage with.
“Donation pile goes first,” one of the movers says.
I nod.
Boxes I helped sort yesterday are carried out along with clothes my mother loved but no longer wore, kitchen gadgets she swore she’d use again, books she read once and insisted she’d revisit. Watching them leave feels strange and irreversible.
I duck back inside and move through the house quickly now, heart pounding, adrenaline taking over where grief left a void. I grab what I can in a panic including some of the photo albums, a few notebooks, and her favorite scarves. I want things that feel like her, not just evidence of her life.
I pack them into boxes marked KEEP in as big of letters as the space allows, stacking them carefully by the door.
Aunt Carol appears beside me. “I’ll hold onto these,” she reassures me. “As long as you need.”
“Thank you,” I manage.
I pause in the dining room one last time, standing in front of the donation pile as if it might speak to me.
Near the top rests the coat my mother wore every December, red wool with a fur-trimmed collar and a missing button she never bothered to replace.
I lift it and press it briefly to my face before I can stop myself.
It still smells like her. I place it into my box instead, knowing some decisions don’t need to be reasoned with.
The house empties slowly, and then all at once. Furniture is carried away, the walls begin to echo, and the rooms grow larger and lonelier without the things that once gave them shape.
By afternoon, the truck is full. The movers slide the ramp back into the truck, thank me, and wish me a Merry Christmas. The words pass through me with a distant ache.
When the door closes behind them for the final time, the house feels like a body resting without a heartbeat.
Aunt Carol hands me the keys. “You don’t have to give these to the realtor yet. You can take a minute.”
I walk through the house one last time, moving from the living room to the hallway and then into the kitchen, letting each space have its moment. I pause in the doorway and allow the quiet to settle around me.
“I did it,” I whisper, unsure who I’m speaking to. “It’s all done.”
There’s no answer, only the low hum of the empty house and the weight of what has been closed.
Outside, the cold air bites sharper than before as I hand over the keys.
The truck pulls away with a low groan, its tires crunching against the frozen gravel as it turns the corner at the end of the street and disappears from view.
Behind me, the house stands empty, the porch bare and the windows dark, stripped of the warmth that once lived there.
The SOLD sign has already been taken down, its white post leaning against the fence like something discarded, as though it no longer knows what it’s meant to hold.
There is nothing left to negotiate with now, no space for second guesses or lingering arguments with myself. I release a long, unsteady breath, the sound of it visible in the cold air, and let the moment pass through me.
“That was… fast,” Aunt Carol trails off in thought, stifling a sob.
I nod. I don’t think I could speak right now if I tried.
She squeezes my arm once. “I’ll take these to my place,” she says, nodding at the boxes marked KEEP. “You call me when you’re ready. They can live there as long as they need.”
“Okay.”
“I love you, Savannah. You did a big thing today. She would be so proud of you.” She pulls me in tight, heart to heart, holding me close.
When she pulls away, she leaves me there, not abandoned, just trusted to have this moment alone.
The cold creeps in immediately, sharp and insistent. I wrap my coat tighter around myself and turn once more toward the house, memorizing the way the afternoon light hits the siding. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s grief refusing to let go cleanly.
A vehicle slows behind me.
I hear it before I see it; the familiar low rumble, the way it idles like it’s a part of the town.
Erik’s truck is pulled halfway onto the curb, hazard lights blinking softly. He gets out slowly, like he’s not sure whether this is a moment he’s allowed to enter.
My heart races at the sight of him and my mind is flooded with thoughts of last night. All I can see now are the photos. The way they were framed before he pressed the shutter, with all of the consistency and care felt in every single one.
Erik doesn’t ask questions. He doesn’t comment on the emptiness or the absence of life in my childhood home. He just looks at me.
“You okay?” The question is open-ended. He’s giving me space to say no.
“I signed,” I say instead.
His jaw tightens just slightly. “Yeah?”
I nod. “It’s done.”
He exhales through his nose, something like relief and something like sorrow passing through him at the same time. “I’m glad you didn’t do it alone.”
I find myself thinking about the photographs again and about how long he has been here while I was gone, how many moments he witnessed without me, and how many things he knows that I am only just beginning to understand. The realization settles slowly, heavy but undeniable.
He steps closer and then stops, leaving just enough distance to give me space.
The cold has reddened his hands and his cheeks, and for a moment he looks exactly like himself, like he did at eighteen when he used to forget his beanie and gloves without fail.
And yet, at the same time, he looks completely different, shaped by years I wasn’t here to see.
“I was just driving by,” he begins, us both knowing full well Pineview isn’t small enough that driving by is never accidental.
I let out a small, unsteady laugh. I want to ask him about the photos, about why he did it at all.
The questions gather in my chest, insistent and heavy, but I don’t know how to voice them without opening something I’m not ready to confront.
So I stay quiet and watch the way his hands rest loosely at his sides, wondering how many times they held a camera since I left.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. It feels intrusive in this moment. I hesitate before pulling it out.
You okay? Haven’t heard from you in a few days. Was hoping to see you over Christmas. Is everything okay?
It’s not from Lena. It’s from Jack, the man I left behind in New York City.
The words blur. My worlds blur. I’m taken back to messy sheets with a warm body, city noise and a life that doesn’t ask questions.
Erik’s gaze flicks briefly to the phone, then back to my face. He doesn’t pry but something shifts anyway.
Two versions of me, pressing from opposite sides.
I lock the screen without responding and quickly slip the phone back into my pocket. Erik notices but he doesn’t comment. He just nods like he understands there are things I’m not saying yet.
“You hungry?” his deep voice thicker in the air than the tension between us. “Mrs. Kincaid’s got half the town at the center with too much food and not enough people. You know, the usual.”
I glance once more at the empty house, trying to take a mental screenshot one last time. Then I look back at him; at the man who has been standing quietly in the background of my life longer than I realized.
“Yeah,” the word barely making it out of my lips. “I think I am, but not there. Can we go somewhere else? Somewhere quieter?”
He opens the truck door for me without making a thing of it. “I know just the place.”