I drove away from the bank and didn’t look back. I wasn’t going to the church. I wasn’t going home. I was going to the farm, to the land that was finally, legally mine. My mother had spent her life in the shadows so I could walk into the light. I wasn’t going to waste a second of it.

The road ahead was clear. The money in my purse was enough to start over, but the deed in my hand was the real inheritance. She had won. She had played the long game, and she had won.

I thought about the coat, the gray wool coat I had almost priced for a dollar. It had been her armor. It had been her bank. It had been her way of making sure I never had to count change in a car again.

I pressed my hand against the dashboard. I could still smell the scent of her perfume, a faint, lingering trace of lavender and dust. I whispered a thank you into the empty car.

The house at the end of the road was waiting. I turned onto the highway and felt the miles stretch out before me, open and empty. I didn’t know what tomorrow would look like, but for the first time, it belonged to me.