I tried to keep my voice steady. I don’t think I did.
A beat of silence. “What do you mean?”
She let out this irritated sigh.
“The house is trashed,” I said. “There are beer bottles everywhere. Trash everywhere. The kids’ rooms are messed with. Max’s lamp is broken.”
She let out this irritated sigh.
“I had Christmas,” she said. “You said I could stay.”
“You promised it would just be you,” I said. “No parties. No guests.”
She gave a little laugh. “You’re being dramatic. It’s not that bad. You’re super picky about cleanliness. I was going to come back and clean.”
“I’m going over there.”
“There is shattered glass in my kid’s carpet,” I snapped. “He could have stepped on it.”
“Okay, relax,” she said. “I can’t afford to replace a lamp right now. Renovations are killing me. It’s just stuff. The kids are fine.”
I hung up before I said something I couldn’t take back.
Dave stared at me. “I’m going over there,” he said.
“It’s late,” I said.
“I don’t care.”
“You’re not going to believe this.”
He grabbed his keys and left.
I stood there, looking at the mess, my hands shaking. I started picking up bottles because doing something felt better than standing still.
About an hour later, the front door opened.
Dave walked in, pale and furious in a way I’d never seen before.
“What did she say?” I asked.
He shut the door slowly. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “She didn’t just disrespect our house.”
“She played us. From the start.”
My chest tightened. “What else did she do?”
He looked at me. “She played us. From the start.”
“Explain,” I said.
“I went to her apartment,” he said. “She tried to block the door. Told me it was a disaster zone. Said the renovation was worse. Said it wasn’t a good time.”
He gave a short, bitter laugh.
“So I stepped outside and called Mom.”
“I pushed past her,” he went on. “And guess what? No renovation. None. The place was clean. Finished. Normal. Kitchen intact. No dust. No boxes.”
My stomach dropped. “So she lied.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And when I asked why she really needed our house, she kept dodging. Changing the subject. Trying to guilt-trip me.”
Continued on the next page
