Part 4

Mom and Dad had spent nearly $19,000 helping her.

They were done.

So they had come up with another solution.

Me.

They had decided Megan and her three children would stay in my house “temporarily” while she rebuilt her life.

“How temporary?” I asked.

Mom hesitated.

“Six months. Maybe a year.”

I laughed again.

Megan snapped, “You live alone! You have all this space!”

There it was.

The sentence everyone had apparently been thinking.

Because I was unmarried and had no children, my house counted less.

My bedrooms were empty, so apparently they belonged to whoever needed them more.

I looked at my parents.

“You made a one-year housing agreement involving a property none of you own?”

Dad stood up straighter.

“We’re family.”

“No. You’re trespassing.”

Megan’s oldest child began crying.

For a moment, I nearly softened.

Then I noticed something beside the staircase.

A small stack of envelopes.

My mail.

Some had already been opened.

I picked them up.

Electric company.

Internet provider.

Property insurance.

Then I found one envelope addressed not to me, but to Megan.

At my address.

I looked at her.

“Why is your mail already coming here?”

She froze.

Mom looked at Dad.

Dad looked away.

The officers noticed.

“So,” one officer said slowly, “how long has she been using this address?”

Nobody answered.

I opened another envelope that had already been torn along the edge.

It contained a printed confirmation from the local elementary school district.

Megan had enrolled her children using my address.

Before I had even moved into the house.