Chapter 7 - Equal in the Frame

Three days later I held Wren again. She weighed six pounds. Jasper weighed almost seven — Dahlia would have called that proof he was the stronger one. But Wren had survived open-heart surgery before she was even seventy-two hours old.

When I laid her beside her brother, Jasper turned toward her. His tiny hand opened. Wren's fingers caught his. Wyatt took a picture — not of Jasper, not of Wren. Of both of them. Equal in the frame.

Dahlia never came back. She sent flowers addressed to "Wyatt and Son." Renee threw them out before I ever saw them, and I loved her for it.

Two months later, Dahlia sued us for repayment of the house deposit, claiming it had always been a loan. It wasn't. Wyatt's grandfather, Reginald Sr., offered to make the whole thing disappear if Wyatt apologized.

"For what?" I asked.

"For embarrassing the family."

Wyatt looked at Wren asleep against my chest and Jasper in his carrier. "My daughter nearly died."

"And she survived," the old man said.

"That doesn't erase what happened."

Reginald sighed. "You're throwing away generations of work over an emotional misunderstanding."

"No," Wyatt said. "I'm ending one."

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We sold the house before the case ever reached court — not because Dahlia won, but because I no longer wanted to raise my children inside a gift she believed gave her ownership over all of us. We bought a smaller place across town. Three bedrooms, a narrow kitchen, a backyard with one stubborn old apple tree that never quite thrived. Wyatt found another job — lower pay, better hours.

The lawsuit was eventually dismissed. One of Wyatt's cousins testified that Dahlia had given her a similar "gift," then demanded it back the moment she married someone the family didn't approve of. Once one cousin spoke up, two more followed. Then the rest of the family's stories started coming apart at the seams — scholarships promised and quietly withdrawn, women paid less, property held only in the men's names. Dahlia called it tradition. The court called it a pattern.