CHAPTER SEVEN — The Family That Came to Collect
Elara
They came a week after the funeral.
Not the day after, when grief was still raw and visible, when sympathy could still be expected. They waited until the house smelled less like flowers and more like dust again, until the neighbors stopped checking in, until silence settled deep enough to feel permanent.
They came when mourning began to look like weakness.
I heard the knock while I was in the kitchen, rinsing a cup my father had used so often the handle was worn smooth by his fingers. The sound was firm, deliberate. Not hesitant. Not kind.
I knew before I opened the door.
They stood there in neat clothes and careful expressions—three of them. My father's older cousin, his wife, and a man I barely recognized but vaguely remembered from childhood gatherings when money still flowed freely and smiles were easier to wear.
"Elara," the cousin said, nodding once, as if we were meeting for coffee instead of standing at the threshold of my life. "Our condolences."
I stepped aside automatically. Manners had been drilled into me young. Even now, grief hadn't erased them.
They entered without invitation.
Their eyes moved quickly, cataloguing. The couch. The shelves. The modest décor that told the story of a family that had learned to live smaller without complaint.
My mother sat in the living room, folded into herself, a blanket around her shoulders despite the warmth of the day. She looked up when they entered, confusion flickering across her face before recognition settled in—and something like dread followed.
"You shouldn't have come," she said quietly.
The cousin sighed, as though burdened by necessity. "We wouldn't be here if it weren't important."
That was how it started.
Not with anger. Not with cruelty.
With paperwork.
They sat at the dining table like guests, spreading documents across the surface my father had once polished himself. Titles. Deeds. Old agreements I had never known existed.
"This isn't about disrespect," the cousin said, tapping a page with his finger. "It's about family obligations."
"Family," I repeated, the word tasting wrong in my mouth.
His wife smiled tightly. "Your father understood these things. He knew where everything stood."
My hands curled into fists at my sides.
If he had understood, he would have protected us from this.
They spoke in measured tones, explaining how certain assets were never truly his. How the house had been registered under broader family holdings years ago, how his business interests had been… shared.
Shared was a polite word for claimed.
I asked questions. Too many. I pressed where I could, pointing out inconsistencies, asking for proof.
They had it.
Every document felt like another quiet theft.
My mother's breathing grew shallow as the conversation dragged on. She clutched the blanket tighter, her knuckles whitening.
"You can't do this," she said suddenly, her voice thin but sharp. "This is our home."
The cousin's gaze softened, practiced and false. "It was your home because he was alive."
Silence fell heavy and brutal.
That was when I understood.
They hadn't come to discuss.
They hadn't come to negotiate.
They hadn't come to soften the blow.
They had come to take.
The realization settled into my bones slowly, like cold. Not shock—shock had already burned through me days ago—but something heavier. Something final. This wasn't grief. This was erasure.
The cousin cleared his throat and slid another document forward. "There are procedures," he said calmly. "Timelines. We've already delayed longer than usual out of respect."
Respect. The word felt obscene.
"You waited until he was buried," I said. My voice sounded distant to my own ears. "That's not respect."
His wife folded her hands neatly in her lap. Her nails were manicured, pale and clean. "We waited until emotions settled. Decisions like this shouldn't be made while people are… unstable."
Unstable. As if grief were a flaw instead of a wound.
I looked at the papers again. At the careful signatures. My father's name appeared everywhere, steady and unmistakable. Proof that he had built something. Proof that it was now being dismantled piece by piece by people who had never lifted a hand to help him.
"You weren't here," I said quietly. "When he started. When he struggled. When there were nights we ate late because he was working extra hours. You weren't here when he mortgaged everything he had to keep things afloat."
The cousin shifted uncomfortably. "That's not relevant."
"It is to us."
"It isn't to the law."
That was the language they spoke. Not love. Not loyalty. Law.
The man I barely recognized finally spoke, his voice clipped. "We're not heartless. Arrangements can be made. Temporary accommodations."
Temporary. Like mercy on loan.
My mother let out a sound then—soft, broken. She pressed a hand to her chest, her face pale beneath the weight of everything she wasn't saying. I moved to her side instinctively, kneeling in front of her, gripping her hands.
"You need to rest," I whispered.
She shook her head slowly. "He promised," she said, to no one in particular. "He promised this house would always be ours."
The cousin looked away. That was the closest thing to guilt he offered.
"Promises don't survive death," he said.
That sentence cut deeper than anything else they had said.
They talked logistics after that. Dates. Notices. Timeframes. They explained how long we had before vacating, what we could take, what technically belonged to the estate and what did not. They spoke as though they were clearing a property, not dismantling a life.
I watched their mouths move and thought of my father at that same table—papers spread out, glasses low on his nose, working late into the night to keep us secure. I wondered if he had ever imagined this. If he had trusted too much. If he believed family would mean something when it mattered most.
I realized then how naive that belief had been.
When they stood to leave, it was with efficiency. No lingering. No discomfort. They gathered their folders, smoothed their clothes, prepared to step back into lives uninterrupted by loss.
"We'll be in touch," the cousin said, already reaching for the door. "It's best if things remain… cooperative."
The door closed behind them with a sound that felt louder than the one my father had made when he left for work that last morning.
The house felt different immediately.
Not emptier. Smaller.
As if the walls themselves had started to retreat, recognizing that they no longer belonged to us.
My mother sat very still for a long time after they left. I didn't move. I didn't speak. I waited until her breathing evened out, until the shaking in her hands slowed.
"They took him twice," she said finally. "Once when he died. And again today."
I had no answer for that.
That night, I walked through the house slowly, touching familiar surfaces—the banister, the doorframes, the table where we had eaten together for years. Everything felt temporary now. Already labeled in my mind as not ours.
That was when the fear truly arrived.
Not the fear of losing my father.
The fear of losing everything else he had tried to protect.
Because death hadn't been finished with us.
And the family that came to collect had only been the beginning.
I slept in that house one last time knowing it no longer belonged to us.
Every sound felt borrowed. Every creak of the floorboards felt like a reminder that we were already halfway gone. I lay awake listening to my mother's breathing down the hall, uneven and fragile, and to the silence where my father's presence used to be. The house still held his shape, but it no longer held his authority.
Morning came without warmth.
Light entered through the windows the same way it always had, but it didn't soften anything anymore. It only revealed what had changed. The furniture looked smaller. The rooms felt exposed. Even the walls seemed to listen differently, as if they knew our time was limited.
I understood then that loss wasn't a single moment. It was a sequence. Death took him. Family took the rest. And the law stood quietly behind them, nodding in approval.
We were no longer a family living in a home.
We were occupants waiting to be removed.
My father had built security brick by brick, promise by promise, believing it would outlive him. What he hadn't accounted for was how quickly blood could turn transactional, how easily love could be overwritten by documents and signatures.
That was the day I learned something else, too.
That grief makes you visible in the worst way. That people who ignored you while you were stable suddenly notice you when you're weak. That some families don't come to mourn—they come to measure, to claim, to collect what they believe was always theirs.
I stood in the doorway of my childhood bedroom and tried to imagine leaving it behind. I failed. The thought lodged in my chest like panic, sharp and immovable.
But fear doesn't stop time.
And time, like death, does not ask permission.