Chapter 1 - The Hallway Ambush
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“What do you mean you're not going to let us in? I brought my three kids, and we're family!”
Tabitha shouted the words so loudly they echoed down the long, carpeted hallway of my Phoenix apartment building. At her feet sat two massive, scuffed suitcases, overflowing with clothes, and three toddlers running circles around her legs, their sticky hands smearing chocolate on the pristine beige walls.
I kept my hand firmly gripped on the door handle, blocking the entrance with my body.
“Precisely because we're family, you should have called first,” I said, keeping my voice dangerously level.
My sister-in-law’s jaw dropped. Her heavily lined eyes widened as if I had just slapped her across the face. She had shown up completely unannounced at eight in the morning on a Tuesday, loudly declaring that a pipe had burst in her suburban home and that she would be moving in “for a little week.”
She hadn’t asked. She had simply decided.
“I don’t need an invitation to my own brother’s house,” she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest. “Now move. The kids are tired, and I need a coffee.”
“This isn't just your brother's house,” I replied, feeling the familiar, exhausting migraine blooming behind my eyes. “And I work from home, Tabitha. I have client meetings in thirty minutes. You can't just crash here with three toddlers.”
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Oh, please. You just draw pictures on a computer all day. It’s not a real job. Garrett is going to put you in your place when he gets here.”
That was the magic phrase. The absolute wrong thing to say.
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“It's my apartment, Tabitha. I bought it three years before I even met Garrett,” I said, my voice dropping to a freezing whisper. “If Garrett wants to have people over without asking me, he can buy his own place.”
And with that, I closed the door right in her furious face.
