Jake raised his brows, waiting.
“You’ve already done more than enough,” Scott said. “Paying off our house. Giving Mom an emergency fund. But this…” He paused. “This is too much. We can’t accept it.”
“Well, that’s awkward,” Jake said, “because I already bought it.”
My eyes widened. “You already bought it? For us?”
He nodded.
“Honey…” I tried again, choosing my words carefully. “We don’t want you spending that kind of money on us.”
“Dad wants it,” Jake said. “Look at him. He’s practically salivating.”
“I am not,” Scott protested, swiping at his chin. “That’s condensation.”
Jake got down to business. “It’s my money. I can spend it however I want, and I want to spend it on you. No—on all of us.” He paused. “Think of it as a fresh start.”
Then I understood why he rarely came to visit. Our house and our town held too many bad memories for him. This place was a clean slate.
“You know what?” I stepped forward and pulled him into a hug, holding on longer than I meant to. “You’re right. This is exactly what we need. A fresh start. We’ll take it.”
“We will?” Scott brightened.
I nodded, smiling.
“Well, hell,” he said, doing a celebratory shuffle. “I didn’t think we were voting tonight.”
“So you like it too?” Jake asked Scott.
“Um… did you see the garage?”
“Which one?”
“Exactly.”
We took another walk through the house, but this time I saw it differently. I saw it filled with our family, with all the new memories waiting to be made. Scott, meanwhile, had already shifted to logistics.
“I’ll need a riding mower.”
“Noted,” Jake replied.
“And an irrigation system I won’t pretend to understand.”
“Sure.”
“And maybe you should throw in a guy to deal with it.”
“Yes,” I said to Jake. “He’ll absolutely need one of those.”
Jake glanced at me. “What about you, Mom? Is there anything you need?”
I met his eyes and smiled.
“Right now, I can’t think of a single thing I’m missing.”
I dippedthe brush into the paint tray and stared at the wall, half expecting it to stop me. Pencil lines climbed up in uneven increments, with names written beside them in handwriting that had changed over the years. This was our cherished measuring wall. Dates, heights, question marks where we’d forgotten the exact month but not the moment. Grace at two, when she barely reached my knee, insisting on measuring herself. Kyle just before his growth spurt—short enough to be angry about it. Emma at eleven, in tears when she realized that at five foot six, she was already taller than every boy in her class.
The brush hovered. I hesitated, then dragged white paint over the first mark. It vanished faster than I’d expected.
