After my husband’s funeral, I returned home with my black dress still clinging to my skin. I opened the door… and found my mother-in-law and eight family members packing suitcases as if it were a hotel. “This house is ours now”.

“Don’t make it personal, Avery,” he said lightly. “It’s just common sense.”

I looked past them toward the couch where Bradley used to read in the evenings, toward the framed photo of us laughing on St. George Street. Near the entryway, the temporary urn with funeral flowers still rested where I had left it hours earlier.

They were trampling across my grief as if it were a carpet beneath their feet.

“Who let you in?” I asked quietly. My voice sounded hollow in my own ears.

Marjorie tapped the lock with a manicured nail.
“I have a key. Of course I do. Bradley was my son.”

Someone had already opened Bradley’s desk drawer. I heard papers shuffling.

“Don’t touch that,” I said.

An aunt named Fiona scoffed sharply.
“And who exactly are you? A widow. That’s all.”

The word widow came out like an accusation, as if it erased everything else I had ever been.

And that was when I laughed.

Not a nervous laugh. Not a fragile one. A deep, uncontrollable burst that filled the room until every movement stopped.

Marjorie narrowed her eyes.
“Have you lost your mind?”

I wiped a tear from laughing too hard.