The trust folder stays in a locked cabinet.
Not because my parents live in fear, but because protection is not the opposite of love.
Sometimes it is the shape love must take when someone mistakes kindness for permission.
On quiet evenings, my parents sit together on the porch and watch the tide move in.
No strangers arrive with suitcases.
No one tells them they have had their turn.
The house belongs to the trust, but the life inside it belongs entirely to them.
