“Down the hall, sweetie,” I said, already reaching for the carpet cleaner.
His sister Madison looked into my pantry and whined, “Why don’t you have good snacks?”
The “good snacks,” of course, were the ones I always bought. The ones they never brought. The ones that magically came out of my grocery budget every single holiday.
Outside, Juliette called from the patio, “Annie, the meat looks a little dry. Are you sure you’re not overcooking it?”
I smiled because screaming was not polite.
By the time they finally left that night, they had eaten through nearly two hundred dollars’ worth of food, left trash in my yard, sticky fingerprints on my doors, and juice boxes behind the couch.
Bryan helped me load the dishwasher while I picked popsicle sticks out of my flower beds.
“Bee,” I said, using his nickname, “your mother moved the couch again.”
“She’s just trying to help, Nini,” he said gently, though I could see the guilt in his face.
