The photo was bright and sunny, almost painfully beautiful. It showed my mother, my father, and my two sisters. They were laughing, holding glasses of white wine, looking relaxed and happy.
Behind them was a view I knew better than my own reflection—the wide wooden deck, the blue infinity pool stretching toward the horizon, and beyond it, the endless Pacific Ocean.
They were in my Malibu beach house.
I stared at the screen, my mind trying to process what I was seeing. I hadn’t given them keys. I hadn’t told them they could go. They hadn’t even asked me.
They were vacationing in my home—a home I’d bought with my own hard work—completely behind my back.
Then I read the caption.
“Finally, peace without the drama.”
I felt physically sick.
The drama was me. They were enjoying my house and my property specifically because I wasn’t there. They were celebrating my absence while using everything I’d worked for as their personal vacation resort.
The investor across from me—a man named Robert who’d flown in from New York specifically for this meeting—was talking about market scalability and growth projections. I nodded, keeping my face calm and professional.
I’d practiced this expression in the mirror for years. It was my business face, the one that said nothing could touch me, nothing could hurt me.
But under the table, my thumb hovered over the screen, and my stomach was twisting into knots.
I unlocked my phone again. I had to look closer. I knew it was poison, but I couldn’t stop myself from drinking it.
I opened Instagram and pulled up my mother’s post. It wasn’t just one picture. It was a carousel—ten photos, ten separate proofs of their invasion.
In the first photo, my mother was sitting on my white linen outdoor sofa. I’d bought that sofa six months ago and had it imported from Italy. I remembered specifically telling her on the phone: “I finally furnished the deck. The fabric is white and delicate, so please, no red wine if you ever visit.”
In the photo, she was holding a glass of red wine. She’d kicked off her dirty sandals and was resting her bare feet directly on the white cushions. She was smiling that wide, fake smile she reserved for church friends and social media.
I swiped to the next photo.
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