At Thanksgiving dinner, my son threw the turkey at me and shouted, “Go back to the nursing home, you useless old woman!” — three weeks later, I sold the house and left them without saying a word — the greedy one lost it all.

By May, the city had burst into full, vibrant bloom. The public park across the street was a riot of pink cherry blossoms and emerald-green grass, and the local farmers' market had returned with its stalls overflowing with fresh strawberries, artisanal cheeses, and bright yellow daffodils.

My spring seminar concluded with a final symposium in the university auditorium. Fifty students sat in the tiered rows, listening intently as I delivered my closing lecture on the concept of agency and personal redemption in modern literature.

"We often spend our lives waiting for other people to validate our worth," I told the auditorium, my voice echoing clearly off the wood-paneled walls without a microphone. "We let parents, partners, and children write the rules of our decline, accepting limitations that were never truly ours to bear. But a life is not a rented property. You hold the pen. And you always have the right to change the locks."

The applause that followed wasn't polite academic clapping; it was a roaring, standing ovation that made my chest tighten with a sudden, overwhelming rush of emotion. Students stood in the aisles, smiling and cheering, while flowers were handed up to the stage by the department chair.

As I walked off the stage and into the wings, Martha Reynolds was waiting by the exit holding a small bouquet of white lilies.

"You still haven't lost your touch in front of a classroom, Inz," Martha smiled, handing me the flowers.

"Teaching is like riding a bicycle, Martha," I said, burying my face in the cool, sweet petals. "You just have to make sure you throw out the bad students before they ruin the grade curve."

"Speaking of curves," Martha said, dropping her voice slightly as we walked toward the faculty lounge. "I heard from mutual acquaintances in the valley. Stuart and Jennifer are officially splitting up. She moved back to her mother’s in Toledo last week, and Stuart took a job working nights at a tire recycling plant three towns over."