My fingers went cold.
Selling?
My phone buzzed again before I could respond—another notification. Then another. Aunt Karen:
So proud of you for stepping up for the family, sweetie.
Uncle Tom:
This will help Ava so much. Proud of the woman you’re becoming.
My breath came short and shallow.
I hadn’t told a soul about Ava’s visit, and I certainly hadn’t agreed to sell the cabin. But somewhere between my stained studio and my parents’ pristine kitchen, “we talked about it” had become “Stephanie’s doing it.”
By the time my phone rang, flashing “Dad,” my hands were shaking.
I answered anyway.
“Stephanie,” Dad said, skipping any greeting. His voice was clipped, precise, honed by years of boardrooms and conference calls. “What exactly is going on?”
“You tell me,” I said. “I’m getting messages about selling the cabin, and I never agreed to anything.”
Cold silence. Then: “Your mother is very disappointed.”
Something in me flinched on autopilot. I hated that it still worked.
“She told me Ava came to talk to you,” he went on. “She tells us you refused to even consider helping.”
“Helping,” I echoed. “You mean, giving up the one thing Grandma specifically left me. The only place she and I ever really had together. That kind of helping?”
He sighed, exasperated. “We’ve supported your art, Stephanie. We’ve paid for your little shows, tolerated your… lifestyle choices. But there comes a point when you have to give back. The family needs you now, and you’re being selfish.”
Supported my art.
I thought of the one show they’d attended, where Mom spent the whole time loudly whispering about how the lighting was terrible and Dad took phone calls near the door.
I thought of the times they’d told me that if I insisted on painting, I’d have to find my own way. That they weren’t running a charity.
“Supported,” I repeated, my voice flat. “Right.”
“This isn’t just about Ava,” he said. “It’s about all of us. We’re talking about financial stability. Appearances. Do you have any idea how it looks when one member of the family hoards an asset while the rest of us struggle?”
Oh, there it was. Not just money. Appearances.
In my parents’ world, perception was currency.
“So this is about how it looks,” I said. “Got it.”
“Don’t be flippant,” he snapped. “This is serious. We’re a family. That means something.”
“It means something to me,” I said quietly. “I’m not sure it means the same thing to you.”
He took a sharp breath, like I’d crossed some invisible line. “You will come to the dinner on Saturday,” he said. “We’ll discuss it properly there. No more of this… drama. Understood?”
I thought of backing out, of saying I was sick, of avoiding the whole thing. But then I pictured Grandma’s cabin, the weathered wood and the porch swing, the smell of her coffee in the mornings. I pictured the kind woman who had looked at a messy, angry thirteen-year-old and seen an artist instead of a problem.
“I’ll be there,” I said.
Dad didn’t bother with goodbye. The line went dead.
I stared at the phone for a moment, then set it down, my hand trembling.
In the silence that followed, the studio felt cavernous and foreign. The canvases leaned in, listening.
I wrapped my arms around myself and tried to figure out why, despite everything I knew about my parents, that stupid spark of hope about the birthday dinner hadn’t quite gone out yet.
Maybe, I thought weakly, they just don’t understand what the cabin means. Maybe if I explain. Maybe if I show them I’m not their enemy.
Maybe.
