They Held My Funeral While I Was Still Breathing. Then My Seven-Year-Old Nephew Looked Into the Coffin and Said, “Mommy, Aunt Madelyn Is Looking at Me”

Not because Christopher and Delilah had poisoned it for me — I refused to let them have the power to drive me out of anywhere.

I sold it because, for the first time in my adult life, I wanted to be the one who decided what leaving a place meant.

With the money, I bought a bright apartment near downtown, and I took full control of the building Aunt Estelle had left me, and I made it mine in every visible way.

White brick.

New linen curtains.

A photograph of my grandmother by the door, watching over the place.