I bothered. I painted walls until my shoulders burned. I ripped out moldy cupboards. I sanded floors myself. I changed locks. I planted hydrangeas and rosemary and a stubborn strip of lavender that survived two terrible winters simply because I refused to let it die. I sewed cushions for the wicker chairs on the back terrace and stitched my initials into the hems because for the first time in my adult life I owned something that belonged only to me.
So when I turned onto my street and saw three unfamiliar SUVs lining the curb, towels hanging over my wicker chairs, music thumping through my open windows, and a plastic sand bucket tipped over in my herb bed, what I felt first was confusion. Then anger. Then something colder than anger.
Inside, children I did not recognize raced across my back terrace with wet feet. My blue throw pillows had been tossed onto the floor. A woman I recognized as Tiffany’s sister was stretched across my sofa with her shoes on, scrolling her phone. Tiffany’s mother rifled through my kitchen cabinets as if she had every right to examine my dishes. On the couch by the front window, my reading place, there was a baby asleep in a portable nest surrounded by someone else’s things.
