“Your funeral. Let me get the paperwork.”
While they waited, a small crowd formed. Other estate-sale shoppers drifted closer, curious.
“Did they just buy that pile of junk?” one woman whispered loudly to her husband.
“For three bucks? That’s still too much,” he replied, laughing.
Then the Morrisons approached—a younger, well-dressed couple who had moved to Riverside not long before and bought one of the big Victorian houses on Main Street. Adeline recognized them instantly.
“Excuse me,” Mrs. Morrison said, false concern dripping from every syllable. “Did you just purchase that structure?”
“Yes,” Adeline replied evenly.
“But why? Where do you even put something like that?”
“We’re going to live in it,” Silas said, his voice level but firm.
The silence that followed was broken by laughter, only half-suppressed.
“Live in it?” Mr. Morrison said, not bothering to hide his amusement. “That’s not a house. That’s a matchbox. A large dog wouldn’t fit in there comfortably.”
“Mind your business,” Silas said quietly.
But the Morrisons had already turned away, still laughing.
The estate-sale manager returned with a handwritten bill of sale and a key, old and rusted and slightly bent, looking like it might not work at all.
“Sign here and here. And I need to see the three dollars.”
Adeline pulled out their last bills and handed them over.
Three dollars. All they had in the world. Exchanged for a tiny shack covered in vines that nobody else wanted.
The manager counted the money, handed over the bill of sale and the key, and shook his head.
“It’s all yours. God help you.”
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