Carter went too.
Dennis Construction Holdings was restored to the estate, and after months of audits, I took control of what remained. The company was bruised but alive. My father had built it too well for them to kill completely.
The house took longer.
I almost sold it.
The gray paint.
The modern lock.
The rooms Reagan remodeled.
For a while, I could not stand being inside.
Then Thomas came by with a paper bag full of rose cuttings.
“Your father’s roses weren’t dead,” he said. “I took some before she ripped them out.”
I stared at him.
“You saved them?”
He shrugged.
“Your dad paid me in tomatoes for ten years. I figured I owed him.”
We planted them together along the front walk.
The first year, only two bloomed.
The second year, the bushes came back strong.
That was how healing worked too.
Not all at once.
Not without dead branches.
But alive.
I restored my mother’s portrait to the entry hall.
I put my father’s old leather chair back by the window.
I replaced the sleek black door with a heavy oak one like the house used to have.
Then I placed Storage Unit 108’s old key in a small frame beside my father’s final letter.
People sometimes ask if I hate Reagan.
