Damon got out of the rental car slowly, staring at the cleared earth where his home had stood for eleven years. Larissa stepped out behind him in her honeymoon glow, and the two teenagers climbed out last, confused, phones lowering from their faces. For a long moment nobody said a word. Then Damon spun in a full circle, as if the house might be hiding behind him, before he snatched the folder Yolanda had taped to his windshield and tore it open. I watched from my car down the road, and I could see the exact instant his confidence cracked into something much smaller.

Inside that folder was everything. The deed with my name, and only my name. The divorce filing. His own 1:47 a.m. text, printed in bold, the words “I deserve a new life” now reading like a confession. And the legal notice that the land beneath his feet, while his, held nothing, because the house had been lawfully relocated by its sole owner. Me. He pulled out his phone to call someone, anyone, and that was when he realized the second thing I had arranged. The number he tried first no longer reached what he expected.