I came back three days early from a business trip and saw a strange car outside my house. I went inside and found my son’s wife there. She smiled and said, “We’re doing some renovations before we move in!” She never asked me. What I did next made her scream nonstop…
The silver Mercedes shouldn’t be in my driveway. My hand freezes on my suitcase handle, the wheels silent against the pavement. Seven in the morning, and this car sits where I always park, gleaming like it belongs here, like it has every right to take my space.
I cut my Chicago conference short by three days. Something in my gut screamed at me to come home. Now I know why. The key fob feels like ice in my palm. My breath goes shallow as I walk toward my front door, each step heavier than the last.
The door is unlocked. I push it open and the hinges don’t creak. Someone oiled them. The scent of lavender sachets that usually greets me is gone, replaced by fresh paint and sawdust. Voices drift from the kitchen—laughter, the clink of coffee mugs against countertops. Somewhere in the middle of it, a bright voice chirps, “Hi viewers, kindly tell us where you’re watching from and what time it is.”
I move through the hallway, my shoes making no sound on the hardwood. The family photos are gone. Thirty-eight years of memories vanished. Pale rectangles mark the walls where they hung. My grandmother’s mirror with the ornate gold frame is missing from the entryway table—the table where I set my keys every single day for decades.
“These cabinet doors are so outdated,” a woman’s voice says. “We should replace them entirely.”
I know that voice. Sutton, my daughter-in-law of eight months.
“Whatever you want, babe,” my son answers. Desmond. Lazy, warm, familiar—until his next words slam into me like a fist. “It’s all ours now.”
Anyway.
I grip the doorframe to steady myself. My kitchen looks like a war zone. Drop cloths cover the tile floor I chose twenty years ago. My cherrywood cabinets lean against the wall in a pile, partially removed, handles missing. The wallpaper I hung myself—delicate blue hydrangeas that matched Randall’s favorite flowers—hangs in strips, torn and dangling.
Sutton stands with her back to me in expensive yoga pants and an athletic top that costs more than my weekly groceries. Her platinum hair swings in a high ponytail as she holds a paint swatch against the bare wall. Desmond sits at my kitchen table—the same table where he did homework as a boy—feet propped on another chair, phone in his hands, scrolling like he owns the place.
“Excuse me.”
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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