I saw my old house through a property listing

Dear Delyara, The house where I raised my children is for sale again. I found the listing by accident while scrolling through property websites I cannot afford. The new owners painted the kitchen grey, removed the height marks from the doorframe, and turned my daughter’s bedroom into an office with a white desk where her bed used to be. The estate agent described the garden as “low-maintenance,” though my husband and I spent twenty summers keeping it alive. He died in that house. I sold it six months later because every room had begun to feel like evidence. Looking at the photographs tonight, I expected grief. What I felt first was offence. How dare strangers place a television against the wall where we kept the piano? How dare sunlight still enter the dining room at the same angle when the people who once sat there have scattered? Then I saw the old apple tree through the kitchen window. They had kept it. My husband planted it the year our son was born. It looked taller, healthier, indifferent to ownership. I saved the photograph. I do not want the house back. I only wanted proof that something we planted remained after every room forgot us.