“Have you completely lost your nerve, Emily, or are you just pretending?” Patricia’s voice thundered from the kitchen as if this were not a modest two-bedroom apartment in an ordinary apartment block on the edge of Cleveland, but the assembly hall of some town council meeting.
Emily had not even managed to pull the key out of the lock. She froze right there in the entryway, a grocery bag from the supermarket in one hand and her laptop in the other. The apartment was filled with a sticky, unfamiliar racket: laughter, forks clinking against plates, stools scraping the floor, a man’s cough, plastic bags rustling. And then there was the smell—the very one that always made her eyelid start twitching: cheap men’s cologne, cigarette smoke, and fried chicken.
On the mat lay someone’s enormous boots, kicked so carelessly that they had shoved her neat shoes aside. Next to them were plaid duffel bags, stuffed to bursting, as though the visitors had not come over for tea but had decided to move in on the spot.
Emily shut the door slowly, slipped the strap of her bag off her shoulder, and asked loudly,
“Am I understanding correctly that there’s another meeting happening in my home without me?”
A cheerful voice immediately rang out from the kitchen.
“Oh, she’s here! Ryan, tell your wife not to stand in the doorway. There’s a draft!”
Emily went into the kitchen without even taking off her coat. What she saw made her mind go suddenly, sharply clear.
At the table, covered with her pale tablecloth, sat Patricia, positioned like the chairwoman of the Committee for Other People’s Lives. Beside her was a heavyset woman of about fifty-five in a raspberry-colored sweater, with bright nails and watchful eyes. On the stool near the window sat Ryan, her husband, gnawing on a chicken leg with a businesslike expression. In the middle of the table were a measuring tape, a pencil, a notebook, and an open furniture catalog. Her vase with dried branches had been pushed toward the sink, right beside a bowl where someone had abandoned a greasy spoon.
“Well, the lady of the house has arrived,” Patricia announced briskly, not bothering to stand. “We’re busy with important matters here, by the way.”
“I can see that,” Emily replied. “The measuring tape and the chicken make it especially clear that nobody’s wasting time. Now explain to me exactly what kind of important matter you’re handling in my apartment.”
The woman in the raspberry sweater smiled at once, as if they were old friends.
“I’m Linda, Ryan’s aunt. This is all within the family, really. We’re not strangers.”
“Wonderful,” Emily said with a small nod. “Then, as family, explain why there is a person sitting in my home whom I have never seen before in my life.”
Patricia waved a dismissive hand.
“Why do you always start in the doorway? I’ve said it a hundred times: your personality is like sandpaper. You could sit down and talk calmly. We’re discussing perfectly normal things. Everyday matters.”
“Then let’s be calm. What exactly are we discussing?”
Without looking up, Ryan muttered,
“Emily, don’t get worked up right away.”
“I’m not worked up yet,” she said. “This is just the engine idling. The main performance is still ahead.”
Patricia pulled the notebook closer and tapped it with one finger.
“I’ll say it plainly, without all those office-style tricks of yours. The two of you live like a mess. This apartment is impractical. The hallway is long and useless. The kitchen is crammed. There’s nowhere to store anything. And Ryan, in case you forgot, lives here too. He should feel like a homeowner, not some boarder tolerated on sufferance.”
“Is that what he told you?” Emily turned her eyes to her husband.
Ryan shrugged.
“Well, is it wrong?”
“So you’re sitting in the apartment I had before we were even married, eating my chicken, and what you’re missing is a sense of ownership?”
“Don’t start,” he grimaced. “You always turn everything into a fight.”
“What should I turn it into? A design competition? There’s a tape measure on my table. There’s a stranger’s spoon in my sink. There are size thirteen boots on my doormat. At this point it’s either a scandal or a television series.”
Linda gave a snort as she poured herself compote from Emily’s pitcher.
“Well, the girl’s got jokes, I’ll give her that. But family isn’t stand-up comedy.”
“And showing up with duffel bags to settle in—is that a touring show?” Emily shot back.
Patricia leaned forward.
“That’s enough sarcasm. Listen carefully. We talked it over and decided the apartment needs to be arranged properly.”
“Meaning what?”
“Meaning this. Half of it should be put in Ryan’s name. Or you could sign the whole thing over to him as a gift. You’re husband and wife. Normal people do that when they plan to live together for the long haul, instead of playing this little game of yours—‘mine, don’t touch.’”
For one second, the kitchen fell so quiet that the dripping faucet in the bathroom could be heard.
Emily looked from Patricia to Ryan. Then to Linda. Then back to Ryan again.
“Wait. I want to make sure I heard this nonsense correctly. You barged into my home, spread tools across my table, brought an audience, and decided I should transfer the apartment I owned before marriage to my husband?”
“Why ‘barged in’?” Patricia immediately protested. “My son has a key.”
“Almost not anymore,” Emily said evenly.
Ryan finally raised his eyes.
“Why are you looking at me like that? This is a normal conversation. We’re family. Mom is right. How long am I supposed to live here like I’m nobody?”
“And who are you here, Ryan?”
“Your husband.”
“A husband is not a title you sit on like a stool. It’s conduct. It’s responsibility. It’s at least the ability to tell your mother, ‘Mom, stop. This is not your property.’ But you’re sitting there chewing while they decide how to rob me politely.”
“Nobody’s robbing you,” he muttered. “Don’t turn it into a tragedy.”
“Oh, of course. Three people with duffel bags and a furniture catalog simply dropped by because of their deep love for architecture.”
Linda set her mug down on the table.
“For your information, I didn’t come here for entertainment. I need a place to stay for about a month. I’m looking for work. You have room. And I would help—contractors, cleaning, cooking. It wouldn’t be for nothing.”
Emily turned toward her slowly.
“Excuse me, but who invited you?”
“What do you mean, who? We’re family.”
“Whose family?”
Linda opened her mouth, but Patricia cut in before she could answer.
“Ryan’s family. And you are his wife now. So we’re yours too.”
“No, Patricia,” Emily said, her voice becoming completely level. “Do not start selling me that circus act about relatives and kindred souls. Not after you walked into my home like this.”