“You can try,” I said.

“But your father made sure I was the primary trustee for a reason.”

“He trusted me to make the right decisions for this family.”

“And I am making them now,” I said.

“I am keeping this house, I am keeping the land, and I am going to keep living my life.”

David stared at me, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and fury.

He had expected me to cry, to fold under the pressure as I had so many times since the funeral.

He had expected the quiet widow who stayed in her room for weeks on end.

I was not that woman anymore.

The music we had danced to earlier was still playing in my head, a steady, rhythmic beat.

It gave me a strange, quiet courage.

“Get out of my kitchen, David,” I said quietly.

“Mom,” Rachel said, her voice small and trembling in the background.

David did not move for a long moment.

His breathing was loud in the silence of the room.

“You’ll regret this,” he said, his voice cold as ice.