Access.
Forgiveness.
This time, nothing came.
Garrett cursed under his breath.
Douglas said, “We are still your family.”
Sienna looked at the fields.
Rows of lavender moved under the sun, bright and alive.
For years, she had believed family meant enduring whatever people did to you because leaving would prove you were ungrateful.
The farm had taught her a different lesson.
Roots matter.
So does soil.
But even a living thing dies if it is never allowed to choose where it grows.
“You were my family when you left me here with no heat,” she said. “You were my family when you laughed at this land. You were my family when Garrett got an apartment and I got a punishment. You were my family when Mom came here this morning to collect a deed like I was a tenant who missed rent.”
Nobody answered.
The fan in the packing shed ticked on.
A bee moved lazily near the gravel, absurdly normal in the middle of all that ruin.
Sienna held up her phone.
“And now you are my family on an eleven-minute recording threatening me for property I no longer own.”
Garrett’s expression shifted.
For the first time, he looked frightened.
