Chapter 2 - The Door They Thought Would Open
Tabitha buzzed again before Garrett could answer. Then again. The sound echoed through the apartment like a tiny alarm.
“Paige!” she called through the speaker. “We’re freezing out here.”
It was late May. The morning was cool, not cold, and the building lobby had a leather sofa, a coffee machine, and a heated floor. Tabitha’s drama had always arrived before she did.
Garrett rubbed both hands over his face. “Let me handle this.”
“You’ve handled enough.”
I pressed the intercom. “Tabitha, I’m not opening the door.”
There was a pause. In the background, a child asked if they could go home.
“What do you mean?” Tabitha demanded. “We drove three hours.”
“Then you should have called before leaving.”
“We did call. You didn’t answer.”
“Because I was asleep.”
“It’s your birthday. We’re surprising you.”
“A surprise is a cake. Three children and six suitcases are an occupation.”
Garrett shot me an angry look. “Paige.”
Tabitha’s voice hardened. “This is exactly why Mom says you’ve become impossible.”
“Your mother says that whenever I say no.”
“Open the door.”
“No.”
The silence that followed felt clean. I had said the word to Tabitha before, once, when she arrived with Maya, Owen, and Leo after an exhausting school week and announced that they were staying for seven days. I had been preparing a presentation then. Tabitha had called me heartless. Lorraine had called me an embarrassment. Garrett had told me I should have welcomed them because family did not need invitations.
The children had stood behind Tabitha with small backpacks and enormous eyes. I had felt guilty for refusing, even though I had been the only adult in the apartment who had asked whether they were tired.
Now Maya was eleven, Owen was eight, and Leo was five. They deserved better than to be dragged into another adult argument.
“Tabitha,” I said, keeping my voice level, “the children can come upstairs with you if you arrange a hotel or call their father. But no one is staying here.”
“You’re not separating me from my kids.”
“I’m not. I’m refusing to house them without notice.”
Lorraine’s voice suddenly joined the conversation. “Paige, darling, open the door before you embarrass yourself further.”
I turned the volume down, but not before hearing Tabitha mutter, “She’s wearing the robe.”
“Of course I’m wearing a robe,” I said into the intercom. “You arrived at five-thirty in the morning.”
“Garrett told us you would be ready,” Lorraine replied.
I looked at my husband. “Did you?”
He said nothing.
The elevator chimed in the lobby. A moment later, the outer door slammed. Tabitha must have followed someone inside. Her footsteps approached our floor, followed by the squeak of suitcase wheels.
Our apartment door had a deadbolt, a chain, and a digital camera I had installed after a package disappeared. The camera showed the hallway on my phone. Tabitha stood there with a red suitcase. Lorraine leaned on a cane she rarely used at home. The children clustered behind them, visibly exhausted. Maya held Leo’s hand while Owen stared at the floor.
Lorraine knocked. “Garrett, open this door.”
“He’s not opening it,” I said.
“You cannot keep a mother from her son.”
“I’m not keeping anyone from anyone. I’m keeping uninvited guests outside.”
Tabitha set her suitcase down. “Where do you expect us to go?”
“To the hotel you should have booked.”
“We can’t afford a hotel.”
“That is not an emergency I created.”
Lorraine struck the door with the end of her cane. “You have a large apartment and no children. How selfish can one woman be?”
I almost opened the door. Not because she had persuaded me, but because the children flinched at the sound of the cane. Then I remembered the message Lorraine had sent: Once she sees how much everyone needs her, she’ll stop being selfish.
The children were not the problem. They were the leverage.
“Maya,” I said through the door, “are you all right?”
The girl looked at the camera and nodded cautiously.
“I’m sorry you had to wake up so early,” I continued. “This is not your fault.”
“Can we have breakfast?” Leo asked.
“I’ll send food down to the lobby.”
Tabitha snapped, “You’ll do nothing of the sort.”
“I will. But you are not coming in.”
I ordered breakfast sandwiches and juice from the café downstairs, then called the building manager and explained that three adults and three children were attempting to enter my apartment without permission. The manager knew me; I had served on the residents’ committee for two years. He came up with a security officer.
Garrett finally opened the door—but only enough to step into the hall. “Mom, Tabitha, go downstairs.”
Lorraine looked past him at me. “You let her do this?”
Garrett’s jaw tightened. “Just go.”
For the first time, I saw that he understood the scene was not private anymore.
When the family moved toward the elevator, I noticed a folded paper sticking from Tabitha’s suitcase pocket. The top line was visible: Paige’s birthday schedule.
I took a photograph through the doorway before the elevator arrived.
Then I closed and locked the door.
May you like
In the quiet that followed, Garrett turned to me. “You’ve made an enemy of my entire family.”
“No,” I said. “They did that themselves.”
