I drove to Lake Norman on a gray Tuesday morning because the porch roof on my late wife’s cabin had started leaking.

Margaret had been gone three years. The cabin was the one place I had barely changed. Her coffee mug still hung beside the sink. Her blue raincoat remained on the hook by the mudroom.

So when I turned down the gravel drive and saw a U-Haul backed up to the porch, I thought I had the wrong house.

Then I saw my son-in-law’s parents carrying boxes inside.

Ron Mercer set down a lamp, opened a beer, and smiled.

“Morning, Tom.”

“What are you doing in my house?”

His wife, Linda, froze with a box marked KITCHEN.

Ron took another drink.

“Derek gave us the door code. This cabin will be ours anyway.”

I stared at him.

“My daughter’s husband gave you permission to move into property he doesn’t own?”

Ron shrugged.

“Claire inherits it. Derek says they’re signing everything over. We’re retiring up here.”

I walked to the keypad.

The code had been changed from Margaret’s birthday to the last four digits of Derek’s phone number.

That was when I stopped arguing.