Not for Gavin.
Not for my parents.
Not because an empty chair made me guilty.
I put it there for the person I might someday invite—the kind of person who would wait at the door, accept my answer, and understand that love does not arrive with a moving truck and declare itself the owner.
Then I locked the door, carried my coffee to the dock, and watched the sun rise over the house that still had only one name on the deed.
Mine.
