My Daughter-In-Law Told Me There Was No Room For Me In My Own Seaside House

My key slid halfway into the lock and stopped. The locks had been changed. A gray realtor’s lockbox hung from the doorknob, and in my mailbox I found an envelope from a title company in Providence, addressed to me. My hands trembled as I opened it. Inside was a closing notice. 14 Cove Road was scheduled to be sold on February fourteenth.

The seller was listed as Eloise Marsh, by her attorney-in-fact, Gregory Marsh. My son. I remembered signing a power of attorney last spring, before my knee surgery, just in case something went wrong. I had forgotten it existed. Then I read the buyer’s name and had to sit down on my own front step. The buyer was Tamsin’s mother, for less than half of what the house was worth.

Adrian Vale
Adrian Vale studied English literature. He is a novelist. He writes atmospheric literary fiction, quiet, character-driven stories about people who drift out of their own lives and the strange, lingering things that find them afterward.

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