I’ve always been an early riser.

Sixty-two years of habit don’t disappear easily, even when your entire life is about to be turned upside down.

That Thursday morning in October began like hundreds of mornings before it.

I brewed a pot of coffee, stepped outside to water my roses, then settled into my favorite chair beside the living-room window and watched the neighborhood slowly come alive.

That was when I noticed it.

A bright red SOLD sign stood in the middle of my front yard.

For several seconds, I simply stared at it.

I blinked twice, wondering if the morning light was playing some strange trick on me.

It wasn’t.

The sign was real.

My home of thirty-five years had apparently been sold.

My hands began trembling so badly that coffee spilled over the rim of my cup.

I hadn’t listed the house.

I hadn’t contacted a real estate agent.

I hadn’t signed anything.

Selling the house had never even crossed my mind.

There had to be some mistake.

I pulled on my robe and hurried outside, barely noticing the cold concrete beneath my bare feet.

The metal post was firmly planted in my lawn.

The real estate company’s logo gleamed beneath the morning sun.

I reached out and touched the sign.

Real.

Absolutely real.

“Mom, there you are.”

I turned sharply.

My son Dominic was walking up the driveway, pulling a large suitcase behind him.

His wife, Amber, followed a few steps behind with another suitcase.

They looked as though they were heading to an airport.

Dominic wore a crisp new shirt.

Amber had on an expensive-looking travel outfit, complete with matching luggage and accessories.

“Dominic?”

I pointed toward the sign.

“What is this?”

He looked uncomfortable for only a moment.

Then his expression hardened into one I had seen far too often during the previous year.

The expression that made me feel less like his mother and more like an inconvenience.

“We need to talk, Mom.”

He gestured toward the house.

“Let’s go inside.”

I followed them into my living room, my heart pounding.

Amber immediately began looking around.

Her eyes moved from my grandmother’s antique lamp to the family photographs on the mantel, then to the Persian rug Harold and I had saved for months to buy.

She wasn’t looking at memories.

She was looking at property.