That night I barely slept, but by morning something in me had hardened. I drove to the office of Nathan’s attorney, a quiet man named Mr. Okafor who had handled our affairs for years, and I asked him the question that had frightened me all night. Could Nathan’s sisters take the house? He listened, then opened a drawer and pulled out a file thicker than the one Coralie had waved at my door. “Diana,” he said gently, “your husband saw this coming. He knew his family better than you did.” I felt my breath catch. Nathan had been sick, but he had spent his final months doing something I never knew about.

Mr. Okafor slid the documents across the desk. The house had never been part of any estate that could be contested, because two years before he died, Nathan had legally transferred it into a living trust with me named as the sole beneficiary. There was no probate to fight, no will to challenge, no crack for his sisters to pry open. But that was not all. He handed me a second envelope, sealed, with my name written in Nathan’s shaky handwriting. “He asked me to give you this only if they came for the house,” he said quietly. My hands trembled as I broke the seal, and what I read inside explained why Nathan had made me promise, again and again, never to leave.