Sophie swayed on her feet. “But… we signed the papers yesterday. The Realtor…”
“Show me.” I held out my hand. “Show me these papers.”
Jaime stepped forward. “I have them right here.”
“No,” Sophie interrupted. “You said you had them, but I never saw them. I never actually signed anything, did I?”
The machine inched closer to the freshly planted garden.
“Jaime,” Sophie said, her voice rising. “Did you lie about the papers too?”
He backed away. “I can explain.”
“Explain what?” I pulled out another document. “The gambling debts? The missing company money? Or how you planned to sell this house—my house—to cover all of it?”
Gasps rippled through the crowd. My mother pressed a hand to her chest.
“That’s not true,” she whispered.
“Check his phone,” I suggested. “Or better yet, ask the people he owes.”
Jaime made a move toward his car, but Eric blocked his path.
“Running again?” Eric asked.
“You did this!” Jaime snapped at me. “You set me up.”
“No.” I handed the legal notice to Sophie. “You did this to yourselves.”
Sophie stared at the paper, tears splashing onto the text. “All those renovations… you knew the whole time.”
“I bought this house the day after you announced your pregnancy,” I said. Then I turned to the stunned crowd. “The day I learned my sister and my ex-fiancé had been together for months.”
“Ivy.” My mother stepped forward. “This is cruel.”
“Cruel?” I laughed, and it sounded sharp even to my own ears. “Was it cruel when you told me to be happy for them? When you celebrated what they did? When you made me the villain for not forgiving them?”
The machinery reached the first flower bed.
Sophie cried out, “Stop, please.”
“Why should I?” I moved closer. “You didn’t stop when I begged you to. When I asked why. When I wanted to know how my own sister could do this to me.”
“I’m sorry.” She fell to her knees, sobbing. “I’m so sorry, Ivy. Please don’t tear apart our home.”
“It was never your home.” I gave the crew a signal to continue. “It was my future you destroyed. I’m just done pretending that didn’t happen.”
Jaime tried to leave again, but two investigators from his former workplace stepped forward and stopped him to discuss the financial discrepancies already under review.
As they led him away, Sophie crumpled the notice in her fists. “Where are we supposed to go?”
“That is not my problem.”
I turned to leave, then paused. “And Sophie? Don’t name your baby after me. She deserves her own life.”
The crowd parted as I walked away, whispers following in my wake. I heard my mother calling my name. Heard Sophie crying. Heard the machines growling behind me.
Eric caught up with me at the sidewalk. “Well. That was intense.”
I looked back once, at the collapse of their perfect image. “Ask me tomorrow if I feel better.”
Behind me, the work continued.
The dust had barely settled when Elelliana found me sitting on my front porch, watching the sun set behind the partially torn-up Victorian.
“Everyone’s looking for you,” she said, settling beside me.
“Let them look.”
She handed me a cup of coffee. “Jaime’s being held for questioning. Sophie’s at the hospital. Stress triggered complications.”
The coffee burned my tongue, but I welcomed the sting. It felt real. Grounding.
“Did you know,” I said quietly, “that I used to imagine my whole life in that house? Sunday dinners. Christmas mornings. Kids running up and down those stairs.”
I stared at the half-ruined structure across from me. “And now I’m going to sell it as is. Let someone else build something new from the wreckage.”
My phone lit up. My mother, again. This time I answered.
“Where are you?” she demanded.
“Home.”