Chapter 3 - THE ROAD TO OAK ISLAND
By Thursday morning, the town of Oak Island was waking up to a brisk, salt-kissed spring breeze.
I had driven down from Wilmington early, my old Subaru packed with a heavy tarp, a Makita drill, two new brass deadbolts, and a thermos of black coffee.
The cottage looked peaceful from the road. The sea oats swayed in the dunes, and the afternoon sun caught the weathered gray siding, making it gleam like driftwood. I unlocked the front door and stepped inside, breathing in the familiar scent of cedar, salt air, and old memories.
For the next six hours, I worked.
I didn't go down there to relax. I went down there to reclaim my territory.
First, I emptied the refrigerator completely. I packed up my spare condiments, the locally ground coffee beans David liked, the vintage pottery mugs we had bought in Charleston on our tenth anniversary, and the framed photographs of our wedding that sat on the mantelpiece. If Vanessa and her mother wanted to play lord and lady of the manor, they could do it surrounded by bare walls and an empty icebox.
Next, I climbed the creaking wooden stairs to the primary upstairs bedroom—the room David and I had shared for twenty years, where the windows opened out toward the inlet.
I stripped the quilted blue bedding, rolled up the spare linens, and packed them into heavy-duty contractor bags. I replaced them with rough, scratchy utility blankets I bought at the hardware store in town—the kind painters use to catch drips.
Finally, I took my drill to the front door and the screened-in porch door. I removed the old brass doorknobs and installed heavy-duty commercial deadbolts, sliding new, unfamiliar keys into my pocket.
By 4:00 PM, the cottage was no longer a welcoming vacation retreat. It was a fortress.
As I walked out to my car, locking the heavy front door behind me, I felt a strange, thrilling lightness in my chest. For sixty-six years, I had been the woman who made space for everyone else. Today, I had cleared everyone out to make space for myself.
I drove back to Wilmington just as the sun was dipping below the maritime forest, painting the sky in streaks of bruised purple and gold.
I knew what was coming. Vanessa was not the type of woman to take no for an answer. She was the type of woman who doubled down when crossed, treating any boundary as a personal insult that required total conquest.
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And true to form, my phone—though Vanessa’s number was blocked—lit up with frantic text messages from Ethan by Friday night.
Ethan: Mom, what the hell did you do?
