“Okay,” I said. “Thank you for thinking it through.”

“Ellen…” He hesitated. “I know this place meant something different to you. I’m glad you told us that.”

I held the phone a moment. “He was proud of you,” I said. “He told me.”

There was a long pause. “He told me too,” Scott said softly. “About you.” And for a moment neither of us spoke — we just shared the quiet left behind by a father who had always found his own way of showing up for each of us.

Amber called the next day. She’d talked to Scott, and to a friend who was a financial planner, and she’d thought about what I’d said — that the house held thirty-two years of our father’s life.

“I want to accept your offer too,” she said. “But I want one thing.”