The fear had lived quiet in Margaret Hollis’s bones long before she spoke it aloud: that one day, her sons would drive her out of the home she had built with her late husband, George. She was 80, a small woman with careful hands and a sharp memory for every creak in the floors. The house was filled with years of life—handwritten growth marks on the doorframe, George’s pipe still holding the faint scent of tobacco, curtains she’d sewn during lean winters.
George had once placed his hand on the kitchen table and said, “This house is yours, Maggie. Always.” Her sons had promised the same. But promises, she would learn, can crumble easily. Just before her 81st birthday, Daniel and Peter arrived with paperwork and soft voices. “It’s safer,” they said of the assisted living facility. “Better.” The home had already been sold without her knowing.
Her grandson Caleb, unaware, came for dinner weeks later and was stunned to find her gone. When he visited her at the…