The Day My Mother Stole My House
The afternoon started like any other Tuesday. I’d left work early to pick up the final box of my belongings from my old apartment—mostly books and a few framed photos I hadn’t had the heart to pack until the last moment. The March sun was warm on my face as I drove through familiar streets toward the house I’d closed on just three weeks earlier. My house. The first space in my thirty-two years that was entirely, legally, undeniably mine.
I’d saved for six years for that down payment. Six years of saying no to vacations, to new clothes, to dinners out with friends. Six years of working overtime at the architectural firm where I’d started as a junior draftsperson and worked my way up to senior designer. Every dollar had been calculated, budgeted, sacrificed for.
The house itself wasn’t grand—a modest three-bedroom craftsman in a quiet neighborhood, with a front porch that needed painting and a backyard that was more weeds than grass. But it had good bones, southern exposure for the garden I planned to plant, and most importantly, it was mine. Not my mother’s. Not my sister’s. Mine.
I should have known that wouldn’t sit well with them.
When I pulled into the driveway, I noticed my mother’s silver sedan parked at an angle that blocked the garage. That was my first warning—Mom never visited unannounced. She believed surprises were beneath her, that proper people made appointments even with family. The second warning was the unfamiliar car behind hers, which I later learned belonged to the locksmith she’d hired.
I grabbed my box of books and walked up the front path I’d swept clean just that morning. The porch light I’d installed myself over the weekend gleamed in the afternoon sun. I reached for my keys, already thinking about where I’d shelve these last books, when I noticed the doorknob looked different.
The old brass finish I’d been planning to replace was gone. In its place sat a new deadbolt—shiny, silver, and completely unfamiliar.
My hand froze halfway to the lock.
Before I could process what I was seeing, the door swung open from the inside.
My mother stood in the doorway like she owned it. Like she belonged there and I was the intruder.
“Mom?” My voice came out uncertain, still trying to make sense of the situation. “What are you doing here? Did something happen?”
The story doesn’t end here –
it continues on the next page.
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