“Rosedale,” I said, without hesitating. For the roses I’d left behind.
For months, Rosedale Holdings LLC appeared on envelopes that came to that house. Financial statements. Correspondence. Todd carried that mail in from the box a dozen times and set it on the counter and never once asked his mother what Rosedale Holdings was.
He was too busy wondering when I would leave to ever wonder who I had become.
PART 3
A few months before that dinner, Todd and Megan had fallen in love with a house.
An old Craftsman on Willow Creek Lane. Four bedrooms, a wide front porch, tall shade trees. The kind of house where you imagine the holidays before you’ve got the keys.
They talked about it endlessly. The children argued over bedrooms. Megan built spreadsheets. Todd ran mortgage numbers every evening.
And then, before they could make it work, a buyer swept in with an all-cash offer, and the house was gone.
