Dad married three months after my mom passed away and told me to “gift” my room to my stepsister and move out. So I said okay, packed my bags, and moved to my uncle’s house. Now Dad’s going mad and doing everything he can to convince me to come back—because he just received this in his mail.
My father remarried just eighty-nine days after my mother passed away.
I know the exact number because I counted it—first when the wedding invitation arrived with gold lettering and a photo of him beside a woman I had barely met, and again the night he told me I should “be mature” and give up my bedroom to her daughter.
Her name was Lorna. Her daughter, Madison, was fifteen—loud, entitled, and already calling my house in Cedar Rapids “ours” before the wedding gifts were even opened. I was seventeen, still sleeping in the pale blue room my mom had painted years ago, still waking up expecting to hear her in the kitchen. My grief hadn’t settled—it felt raw, like something alive under my skin.
But my dad didn’t seem to notice.
He stood in my doorway and said, “Madison needs stability. You’re almost an adult—you can move into the den.”
