“Oh, Jenna, move out of the way, dear,” Darla huffed, out of breath from dragging the bag. “We’re just getting settled in. Like I texted you, Rick and I need the big bed. The guest room mattress is far too firm for my sciatica.”
“You are mistaken,” I said, my eyes locked onto hers. The temperature in the hallway plummeted. “This is my room. Your room—if you are staying here at all—is in the finished basement, where there is a perfectly functional air mattress.”
“Jenna!” Darla gasped, her eyes bulging in theatrical outrage. She clutched her pearls—literally. “I am a sixty-year-old woman with a bad back! I am your elder! I should have priority in this house!”
“You are an adult who barged into someone else’s house unannounced, demanding free room and board,” I replied, not moving an inch. “You do not dictate the living arrangements in a home you do not own.”
“What is going on out here?” Caleb came jogging down the hallway, hastily pulling a t-shirt over his head.
“Your wife is being incredibly disrespectful, Caleb!” Darla cried, instantly playing the victim. “She is trying to banish your stepfather and me to a basement! Like animals!”
Caleb looked at me, his eyes pleading. He reached out and grabbed my forearm, trying to gently pull me out of the doorway. “Come on, Jenna. Please. Just let her have the room for a few days. It’s not a big deal. We can sleep in the guest room. Don’t make things awkward.”
I looked down at his hand on my arm, and then up into his eyes. In that precise moment, something fundamental inside me died. The deep, agonizing disappointment washed over me so thoroughly that it extinguished my anger entirely.
Caleb wasn’t a partner. He was a frightened little boy masquerading as a husband. He would rather watch his wife be displaced in her own sanctuary, bullied by his parasitic family, than endure five minutes of confrontation with his mother.
I violently shook his hand off my arm.
