My step-mother called to say, “You’re banned from the family beach house forever!

A faint smile touched the corner of my lips.

“Thank you for telling me about the locks,” I said.

There was a pause. “What does that mean?”

But I had already ended the call.

The silence that followed felt unexpectedly calm. The city buzzed beyond my window, but inside the apartment everything seemed still as I walked down the hallway toward my small home office.