The video began with the elevator doors opening.
My mother stepped out first.
She wore a camel-colored coat and carried her structured leather purse in the crook of her arm. Her hair was carefully styled, her lipstick fresh. She looked not like a woman arriving to beg, but like a woman arriving to inspect property.
My father followed in a navy jacket, his mouth already set in irritation. Bethany came last, wearing leggings, a cropped jacket, and sunglasses pushed onto her head. She looked bored until she saw the hallway camera and frowned.
They walked directly to my door.
Mom pressed the bell. Once. Twice. Three times.
“Christina,” she called, her voice bright and false. “We know you’re home.”
I was thirty miles away.
Dad checked his watch. “She’s ignoring us.”
“She’ll open,” Mom said.
Bethany shifted her weight. “Maybe she’s at work.”
“She knew we were coming.”
“No, you told her we were coming,” Bethany said.
My mother ignored that.
For five minutes, they rang and knocked. My father called my phone. I watched the missed call appear in real time on the recording, a strange double vision: his anger at my door, his name on my screen.
Then my mother did something that made the blood drain from my face.
She reached into her purse and removed a key.
Not a key fob. Not something she might have mistaken for building access. A physical key. Brass. Professionally cut.
I had never given my parents a key to my old apartment. I had never given them a key to this condo. The only way she could have that was if she had taken one at some point, copied it, or copied an old key believing it would work.
Watching her insert it into my lock felt obscene.
It was one thing to know your family did not respect your boundaries. It was another to see your mother calmly attempt to use a secret key on your front door.
The lock flashed red.
She tried again.
Red.
Dad leaned in. “Turn it harder.”
“I am turning it.”
Bethany took a step back. “Mom, where did you get a key?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It kind of does.”
My mother’s face tightened. She jiggled the key, pulled it out, shoved it back in.
Red.
The smart lock emitted a warning tone. My phone received another alert.
Unauthorized physical key attempt.
Dad took the key from her and tried himself. He pressed his shoulder slightly against the door as he turned it.
Nothing.
“This is ridiculous,” he said.
“She changed the locks,” Mom snapped.