Sophia climbed in with them, telling herself she’d just make sure they got inside safe.
They drove through tidy new streets lined with half-built houses. Grace kept murmuring, “Third right… yellow house with the white shutters… Ryan showed us pictures…”
Tony slowed. Then stopped.
There was no yellow house. There was an empty lot, a crooked FOR SALE sign, and knee-high weeds.
Grace made a sound like a wounded animal. “James… where’s our house?”
James—her husband—leaned forward, squinting. “This is Flower Road. He showed me. He sent pictures…”
Tony met Sophia’s eyes in the mirror. His look said scam.
Sophia’s heart started pounding so hard she felt it in her teeth.
“James,” she said carefully, “do you have any paperwork? Anything with an address?”
“Ryan handled everything,” Grace whispered. “He said we didn’t need to worry. He sold our old place on Chester Avenue… said it was too big, too much upkeep… said he’d invested the money so we’d never have to worry again.”
Sophia already knew what Zillow was about to tell her.
Chester Avenue homes were going for five-fifty, six hundred thousand easy. They’d lived there forty years.
She looked at two devastated people who had exactly nothing left and made the second craziest decision of the night.
“Come home with me.”
Three heads whipped toward her.
“It’s not fancy,” she said quickly, “but it’s warm, and it’s safe, and we’ll figure this out in the morning.”
Grace started crying again, but this time it sounded like relief.
Tony reset the meter without being asked and turned the car toward Sophia’s side of town.
The apartment was small, cluttered with baby things and grief. Michael’s jacket still hung by the door because she couldn’t make herself move it.
James took it all in and said, very quietly, “It’s perfect.”
That night, Grace heated leftover spaghetti while James sat on the couch staring at his empty hands like he’d never seen them before. Sophia rocked a fussy Eli and realized she had just invited two strangers to live with her indefinitely.
And somehow it already felt right.
Morning came too fast.
Sophia woke to the smell of coffee and the soft clatter of pans. Grace was at the stove making scrambled eggs like she’d done it a thousand times. James sat at the table looking ten years older than he had in the dark.
“You didn’t have to cook,” Sophia said.
Grace turned with a sad, gentle smile. “I haven’t slept past six since 1972.”