My son said, “My wife, the kids, and my mother-in-law are coming to live here. They’re cramped in the apartment. There’s no point in complaining… it’s decided!” He went to get them, but when they returned… they were sh0cked by what they saw.

I stood perfectly still with the coffee maker in my hand as I watched him pace around my living room as if he were the rightful king of the castle. It felt as though all those years I spent cleaning the houses of wealthy strangers meant nothing to him and my opinion was just an insignificant detail.

“Are you even listening to me right now?” he asked while looking at his phone with a distracted expression. “Penelope is already packing the boxes while the kids, Toby and Sadie, are excited because they will finally have enough space to play.”

“We also cannot leave Gladys alone anymore because she is getting older and we simply cannot afford to hire a professional to look after her. There is plenty of room in this big house and you are living here all by yourself anyway,” Randall added with a shrug.

Gladys was the mother of my daughter-in-law and she was a woman I had only met a handful of times during holiday gatherings. Now she was apparently going to live in my refuge which was the place where I had finally found peace after being widowed and raising five children.