Instead of answering her directly, I opened the family group chat which was titled Fam Fam and had originally been my sister’s idea. The chat was usually a mess of chain prayer graphics from my mother and political memes from my father along with blurry photos of birds.
“I am giving everyone a heads up that Tiffany is trying to move eight people into my apartment for the weekend without asking,” I typed into the group. I made sure to clarify that I had already told her no, but she was ignoring my boundaries and heading there anyway.
My mother, Diane, replied first to tell me that I should not make a scene because family is supposed to help family during difficult times. My father, Robert, followed up by saying that I was a single guy and that I would be perfectly fine for just one weekend.
They did not see me as a father or a tenant or even a man trying to give his son one stable room after a difficult divorce. To them, I was just a single guy who acted as a placeholder with high speed Wi-Fi that they could use whenever they felt like it.
My phone buzzed with a notification that motion had been detected at my front door, so I opened the live feed to see that they had arrived. Tiffany was standing in the hallway wearing a camel coat and the irritated expression of a woman who was already preparing to act like a victim.
Brandon stood behind her with two heavy rolling suitcases while looking like a man who believed most doors should open if he leaned near them with enough confidence. Behind them were Arthur and Martha, who both looked exhausted from the drive and were clutching their travel pillows and tote bags.
Cody was standing near the wall with his headphones in while his fiancée, Amber, held a massive water bottle and looked bored by the delay. Their two kids were dragging small animal shaped suitcases and were already starting to whine about wanting to go inside.
There were exactly eight people standing in the hallway just as I had calculated while I was standing in the store. Tiffany dug into her purse to pull out the old silver key that my mother had given her and jammed it into the deadbolt with force.