All These Empty Houses: When Inheritance Becomes a Burden

The door slammed against the wall, rattling the picture frames.

“Hey, Ashley! You got any more of those La Croix in the fridge?” my cousin Mark shouted from the kitchen, not bothering to look for me first. I was sitting on the couch, clutching a throw pillow so tightly my knuckles turned white, but he didn’t notice. No one ever did.

I forced a smile as he wandered in, holding out an empty can. “Didn’t mean to wake you,” he said, but his tone told me he didn’t care one way or the other. He tossed the can in the recycling with a clang that made me flinch.

This was my mother’s house. Or, it had been. Now it was mine, and apparently, Mark’s personal convenience store.

If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be living in the suburbs with the keys to three houses jingling in my purse, I’d have called you crazy. But that was before the car accident, before the cancer, before my family evaporated in the space of six months. Mom, Dad (though they’d been divorced since I was ten), my kid brother, and finally, my grandma—gone, each one leaving behind an echo and a set of keys.

I didn’t want to be a landlord. I didn’t want to be a gatekeeper, a referee, or a reluctant host. I just wanted to grieve in peace. But grief wasn’t private anymore. It was communal property, just like the houses.

“Mark, do you mind calling first next time?” I tried to keep my voice steady. “I just… I need a little warning. This is still my—”

“C’mon Ash, you know Aunt Linda always let us in,” he interrupted, grinning that crooked family grin. “Feels weird to knock. We’re family, right?”

Family. Such a comforting word, until it turns into a battering ram.

After Mark left—leaving muddy footprints and an open bag of chips on the coffee table—I wandered through the house, picking up after him. I lingered in the hallway, tracing the grooves in the banister where my brother had carved his initials. Every house I owned had these ghosts. Dad’s fishing trophies mounted in the den of his ranch house, Grandma’s crocheted blankets still folded on the guest bed. Even the smell of lemon cleaner felt like a memory.

But none of it felt like mine. Not really.

The next day, my aunt Cindy called me, voice bright and insistent. “Ashley, I’m just going to swing by the old place this weekend, if that’s okay? The girls want to use the pool and you know how much Grandma loved having us over.”

I hesitated. “Actually, I was thinking about having some quiet time there. Maybe just me this weekend?”

She sighed, a sound so familiar it made my heart twist. “Honey, you know it’s what your grandma would’ve wanted. All of us together, making new memories.”

But all I wanted was to remember the old ones, alone.

I tried to set boundaries. I even put up a sign on Dad’s house: “Please Call Before Entering.” My cousin Shelly posted a selfie on Instagram the next day, standing in front of it, captioned: “Guess we’re not welcome anymore! #awkward.”

The comments rolled in—family, friends, even people I barely knew. “She’s just grieving, give her time.” “That house is basically a family landmark, she can’t keep it to herself.” “Don’t be so cold, Shelly. Ashley needs support.”

I stopped reading after that.

A month later, I found a cousin’s boyfriend sleeping on my grandma’s sofa, his shoes kicked off and a half-eaten pizza on the floor. I stood in the doorway, rage and humiliation burning my cheeks.

“Who let you in?”

He blinked, confused. “Shelly said it was fine. I just needed a place to crash, figured nobody’d mind. Sorry.”

I wanted to scream. Instead, I picked up the pizza box and started gathering his things.

That night, I called my best friend, Rachel. “I feel like I’m living in a museum where everyone else is the tour guide. I don’t even know what’s mine anymore.”

She was quiet for a moment. “You know, Ash, you’re allowed to change the locks.”

But was I? My parents’ divorce had taught me early that nothing was ever really mine. I’d bounced between houses, always careful not to take up too much space. Now, even when the deeds were in my name, I still felt like a guest, afraid of being too loud, too selfish, too much.

I started seeing a therapist, Dr. Bennett, whose office smelled like peppermint tea. “Why do you feel guilty about setting boundaries?” she asked, pen poised over her notepad.

I chewed my lip. “Because these houses are all I have left of them. If I shut everyone out, I’m shutting the door on my family too. But if I let everyone in, there’s nothing left for me.”

She nodded. “Grief isn’t a communal project, Ashley. It’s okay to claim your own space.”

So, I changed the locks. I sent out a group email: “I need some time to myself. Please don’t come by without asking first.”

The backlash was immediate. Angry texts, guilt trips, Facebook posts about how I’d forgotten my roots. Even my dad’s old friend, Mr. Turner, left a voicemail: “Your folks would’ve wanted you to keep the family together.”

But I started to breathe easier. I walked through my mom’s kitchen barefoot, made coffee just the way she liked it, sat in the backyard and watched the sun set over the pool. It still hurt, but at least it was my hurt, not diluted by everyone else’s noise.

Sometimes I think about selling. Letting go of all three houses, starting over in a city where nobody knows my last name. But I’m not ready. Not yet.

Last week, my cousin Mark sent a text: “Miss you. Wanna hang out?” No mention of the house. Just me.

Maybe we’ll find a way to be family again, without trespassing on each other’s grief.

I wonder: How do you tell your family that you need space without losing them for good? Is it possible to claim what’s yours, without feeling like you’re betraying everything you came from?