I opened the app.
And there they were.
My parents.
Inside my house.
After hearing my mother say I would just accept it, I kept watching.
“The basement is perfect for Kyle and Brittany,” she said. “It has its own bathroom. Plenty of space. Myra barely uses it anyway.”
My father murmured something I could not quite hear.
Then my mother turned toward the camera without noticing it and smiled the kind of smile she wore when she believed a situation had already been handled.
I downloaded the clip.
Then I opened my email.
That was when I found the U-Haul confirmation.
It had been forwarded to an old family email account I still had access to because no one had ever bothered to change the password. A fifteen-foot truck had been reserved under Gerald Seward’s name. Pickup date: March eighth. Drop-off location: my address in Aurora, Colorado.
They were not asking.
They were not even pretending to ask.
They were just taking.
I did not sleep that night.
Instead, I sat in my hotel room with my laptop open and documented everything.
The Ring app let me download footage directly to my device. I saved every clip from March third. Forty-seven minutes of my parents walking through my home like prospective buyers. Then I saved the U-Haul confirmation. Reservation number, pickup location, drop-off address, my father’s name, his credit card on file.
It was enough.
Then the footage from the next day came in.
Kyle and Brittany arrived at my house.
My brother unlocked my front door with what had to be a copy of the spare key. He walked straight to my bedroom, not the basement, and opened my closet.
“This is way better than I expected,” he said.
Brittany was filming on her phone.
“Look at this closet space,” he said.
“And the view from this window is so much nicer than that apartment,” Brittany said.
Then she paused.
“Mom said the basement.”
Kyle flopped onto my bed.
My bed.
With his shoes still on.
“Big sister doesn’t need the master bedroom,” he said. “She’s never even here.”
Brittany’s voice came from off camera.
“You sure she won’t freak out?”
Kyle snorted.
“Myra? Please. Mom’s got her handled. She said, and I quote, ‘Leave it to me. I know how to manage her.’ By the time sis gets back, we’ll be settled. What’s she going to do? Kick out family?”
