Every year, my son pretends to forget my birthday to travel with his mother-in-law, who has her birthday the same week. This year, I said nothing. I bought a $3 million villa with my secret inheritance, and posted the photos.Within hours, my phone was ringing nonstop. If you’re watching this video, tell me where you’re from or what time it is for you. If I back down today, I hand my life to other people and call it love.

The bank alert lands on my son’s phone at 10:47 a.m. Five minutes later, my own phone lights up with his name. I let it hum against the marble island while sunlight sprawls across a kitchen that still smells faintly of cardboard and lemon oil.Outside, the water glitters like a secret I finally told myself. “Ms. Carter,” Jenna, my realtor, hovers in the doorway with a bundle of glossy documents.

“We’re funded, recorded, and the keys are yours.”“Good,” I say, breath steady. “Let’s take a walk before the next round of phone calls finds me.”We move through the place, just the two of us and the hush of a home that hasn’t learned our histories yet. The living room’s wall of glass throws a double of the shoreline at our feet.The deck runs like a ribbon along the back and ends in a corner where a person could sit with coffee and forget to remember the past. My phone buzzes again. Daniel this time, then Nicole, then an unknown number that’s almost certainly Pamela from her daughter’s phone.I silence the device and slide it into a drawer—the way you put away a tool you’ve overused. Jenna points to the envelope. “Utilities are transferred.Property tax estimates in there, too.”