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Instead, I received a text telling me I was a close family. That evening, I sat in Margaret’s favorite chair—my favorite chair now—overlooking the ocean, a glass of wine from a bottle worth more than most people’s cars in my hand. The house felt enormous around me, but not lonely.
There’s a difference between being alone and being lonely, and I was learning to appreciate the distinction. I thought about Christmas’s past—how over the years, I had felt more and more like a supporting character in my own daughter’s life. How Melanie’s husband, Andrew, would barely make eye contact with me, clearly considering me beneath his family’s social status.
They’ll have all the space they need. I picked up my phone and scrolled through my contacts. I had friends—good friends—people who valued my company, my conversation, my presence.
People who didn’t see me as an obligation or an embarrassment. It was time to find out who my real family was. Let me paint you a picture of the home I had inherited, because understanding its magnificence is crucial to understanding what happened next.
The Ashworth estate—though I suppose it was the Thorp estate now—sat like a crown jewel on the Connecticut coast. Margaret had named it Windmir, and from the moment you turned through the rot iron gates, you knew you were entering something special. The main house was built in 1897 by a railroad baron who wanted to create a summer cottage that would outshine the Vanderbilt mansions in Newport.
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