Ann crossed her arms even more tightly across her chest. A straitjacket, arms that were doing their best to keep her from coming completely undone. “Two years you lived with us, and you call yourself an heir?”

The drizzle intensified. It felt good, actually, and she knew Michael thought so, too. They used to love running together in the drizzle and fog, both on the lakeshore path back home, and along Ocean View Drive here. Once, when it was raining really hard, Michael stopped running and stood on the Humboldt Bridge over the river, his hands in the air like Jesus, his head tipped back, drinking the rain as it fell from the sky.

“I’m not trying to take anything from you.” He looked at her, sincere, trying to draw her into his gaze, his argument—

No, no, no! Ann ripped her eyes away from him, staring into the fire pit where the family—including Michael—used to sit in their better days, her dad with his guitar on his lap, her mom using a pocketknife to sharpen sticks for s’mores.

“Here’s the thing: I don’t want you to buy us out with your dirty money, the money you took from Anthony. Did you tell Poppy about that, too, or did you conveniently leave that part out?” This anger was so familiar to Ann that it felt like it held her up, a second spine.

Michael cleared his throat. “I talked to my lawyer.” His voice was deeper than she’d remembered it, more gravelly and wise. He sounded like what he was: an adult now. They were adults.

“You’re a big man now, huh? Your lawyer? You love saying that, don’t you?”

She could tell she was hurting him. Good. She wanted him to hurt the way she’d hurt all these years. “I won’t let you buy this house.”

“My lawyer says I’m a cloud on the title.”

“You’re a cloud on my life.”

“God, Ann. Don’t say that.”

She’d hit a nerve, so why did it make her feel guilty instead of victorious?

“Listen to me: you have no right to this house. I don’t care what you and Poppy spoke about, and I don’t care what your fucking lawyer says. Just go away. Please. Just leave me and my family alone.”

“I am your family.”

She hadn’t expected that. “No. We all just felt sorry for you.”

He winced again. She was reminded of how she’d felt all those years ago when her father finally got out his pellet gun and shot the woodpecker that had been tormenting them for months. Relieved, yes, but the woodpecker was just doing what woodpeckers do. The silence that followed the bird’s death was more relentless than the noise it had once made.

Michael said, “You used me.”

“I used you? Pot, meet kettle.”