STELA GOMES
It had been exactly two months since I lost my grandparents, and along with them, a part of me had died. I felt alone in the world; after all, they were my only family. I didn’t even have a house to live in, but Ivan had taken care of everything for me—from the wake to my move.
When I left the hospital, I was taken straight to his house. After the wake, he told me not to worry about anything because everything was already resolved. He paid off what my family owed and settled everything with the bank that had taken our house as payment. The only thing I had left was my mother’s jewelry, which Grandma had kept, and I would do exactly what she told me to do. The hard part would be talking to Ivan about it.
When I arrived home from my grandparents’ funeral, I had no head for any
