A New Beginning
The house wasn’t a mansion. It wasn’t extravagant. But it was beautiful — a small cottage near a lake about thirty minutes from town. A place I had once pointed out on a weekend drive, mentioning casually how peaceful it looked.
Apparently, the twins had remembered.
Of course they had. They remembered everything.
When we visited the property the following weekend, I cried again. The kitchen overlooked the water. There was a porch swing, a flower garden, and a reading room with enormous windows.
It was exactly the kind of place I would have chosen for myself — if I had ever let myself think about what I wanted.
That realization struck hard. For eighteen years, my dreams had come second. Not because anyone forced that on me, but because I loved those boys.
Now they were giving me permission to dream again.
