The expensive sofas Patricia loved to lounge on, holding court, criticizing me.

The grand dining table Ethan proudly showed off to guests, at dinners where I was treated as staff.

The guest bedroom Megan had colonized and treated as her personal hotel suite between shopping trips.

All of it, I left precisely in place, untouched, gleaming, waiting.

Because I wanted them to come home to a castle that looked exactly as they had left it.

I wanted them to walk up to that door tanned and laughing, pulling their designer luggage, certain that their comfortable world was waiting inside for them, exactly as it always had been.