Part 2: My sister gave a champagne toast claiming my dream mountain lodge was hers, but she had no idea I was standing in the doorway holding the actual deed.

Olivia heard me, but her face barely flickered. That was her superpower. She had spent thirty-four years mastering the art of smiling through other people’s discomfort while quietly orchestrating the room. She lowered her flute of Dom Pérignon, letting the crystal chime softly against the quartz countertop—the very countertop I had paid five thousand dollars to have transported up the icy switchbacks from Grand Junction.

"Becca, sweetie," Olivia said, her voice dripping with the gentle condescension she usually reserved for toddlers and service workers. "Don't make a scene in front of our guests. We were just toasting to new beginnings. Why don't you put your bags in the mudroom and grab a glass?"

"Our guests?" I repeated, the words tasting like gravel.

The living room had gone dead quiet. The soft jazz playing through the Sonos speakers sounded suddenly loud, almost mocking. My cousin Michael lowered his beer bottle, his eyes darting between Olivia and me. Aunt Carol looked bewildered, her hand still hovering in the air where she had just been gesturing toward the vaulted tongue-and-groove cedar ceiling.

"Becca, please," my mother hissed under her breath, her manicured nails digging painfully into the wool of my winter coat. "Not here. Come into the back room right now."

I pulled my arm free. "No, Mom. I want to hear Olivia finish her speech. What did you say, Liv? 'When this came on the market, we had to have it'?"

Jason stepped forward, shifting his weight with an awkward grimace. He adjusted his fleece vest—brand-new Patagonia, the tags probably cut off an hour ago in my guest bathroom. "Look, Becs, we know you helped with some of the interior stuff, and we’re super grateful. Really. You did an amazing job with the tiles. But let’s keep the vibe positive, okay? We've got folks here from the Denver Chamber."

I almost laughed. It was a dry, hollow sound that echoed off the high rafters. They were doing it in real time—the classic, suffocating family gaslight. If you repeat a lie with enough confidence in front of enough witnesses, the truth becomes an inconvenience, and the person speaking it becomes the villain.

"You think I helped with the interior stuff?" I reached inside my heavy canvas coat, unzipping the inner pocket. The crisp, thick parchment of the county clerk’s envelope rubbed against my fingers.

"Becca, stop it!" my mother snapped, dropping the polite whisper entirely. Her cheeks flushed an angry, mottled red. "You are embarrassing your sister on the most important weekend of her life!"

"I'm embarrassing her?" I took three measured steps into the center of the great room, right onto the hand-knotted wool rug in front of the stone fireplace. "Then let's clear the air."

I slid the folded deed out of the envelope and slapped it down onto the coffee table with a crack that startled Aunt Carol into dropping her cocktail napkin. The gold embossed seal of Ouray County caught the glow of the fire.

"That," I announced, looking directly at the Boulder couple with the sourdough Instagram, "is the warranty deed registered at nine o’clock yesterday morning. Rebecca Lynn Vance. Sole owner. Every single square foot of this property was bought with my life savings, my sweat, and four years of eighty-hour workweeks."

Olivia didn't look at the deed. She stared right into my eyes, her jaw clenched so tight the tendons in her neck strained. "You always have to be the center of attention, don't you?"