A cold drop of anxiety hit my stomach immediately as I looked down at the items I had gathered for my son, Leo. I had bought him new socks because he lost them in ways that suggested a secret portal under his bed, and I had picked up a small Lego set because he had been asking for it for weeks.
My son was staying with his mother, Sarah, that weekend, which meant it was my rare stretch of forty eight hours alone in the apartment. Divorced parents often pretend this time is total freedom, but it is usually a strange mixture of relief, guilt, and the sudden ability to eat cereal over the sink.
I had planned a weekend so boring that it felt luxurious, including writing some code for a side project and watching a terrible action movie without a six year old asking about physics. Instead of that peace, my brain started counting the people that Tiffany would likely bring into my two bedroom apartment in the Uptown area.
There would be Tiffany and her husband Brandon, along with Brandon’s parents, Arthur and Martha, and Brandon’s brother Cody. Cody would likely bring his fiancée, Amber, and their two children, meaning there would be at least eight bodies minimum in my small living space.
Eight people would be stepping over Leo’s toys and opening my refrigerator while using my bathroom and touching my expensive work monitor. They would be sleeping in my bed or on the floor of my son’s room because Tiffany decided that Brandon’s parents deserved somewhere central to stay.
I pushed my cart against a wall of red baskets to get out of the way of other shoppers while I sent a text telling her that she could not stay at my place. The typing bubble appeared instantly as she prepared her next move to pressure me into compliance.
“Ethan, you are being far too dramatic about this situation,” she wrote back while explaining that they had already told the in laws the plan. She claimed that their bags were already in the car and that they were only ten minutes away from my front door.
I checked the time to see that it was nearly half past five in the evening, which meant she was not asking for permission but was instead timing my arrival. My apartment was only eleven minutes away from that Walmart if the traffic cooperated, so I opened my smart lock app as fast as I could.