I finally bought my dream house and invited my family to come see it. No one showed up. Later that night, my dad texted, “We need to talk about the house.” By then, something inside me had already shifted.

Lily turned eight and informed me solemnly that eight-year-olds were “basically apprentices,” which I suppose in some emotional sense was true. She still wore the key on the blue ribbon sometimes, though by then it had faded nearly white. One Sunday she brought me a drawing. A purple house with a black fence, a cherry tree instead of an oak, and a sign on the gate that read NO MEAN PEOPLE.

I laughed for nearly a minute and then put the drawing on the fridge.

My father sent one more letter that summer. Shorter this time. No apology. Just an update that my mother had taken up pickleball with surprising aggression, that Kevin and Amber had broken up, and that he had driven past my street once but had not stopped. At the bottom he wrote: The blue really does suit the house.

I never answered that letter. Not because I hated him. Because not everything needed a response to count. Some things could simply be received and left where they landed.