I had told you Lydia would give in. We can use this place for the entire month of July.

I looked at Aaron.

“You promised her my cottage for a month?”

He reached for the phone.

“We only talked about it.”

“She believes it has been settled.”

“Nothing was final.”

“It was final in your mind because you expected me to surrender again.”

He lowered his voice as if my volume, rather than his behavior, were the danger.

“Don’t create a scene. They’ll leave tomorrow, and everything will return to normal.”

“That is exactly what will not happen.”

I returned to the children. Emily sat on the bed holding her stuffed rabbit, while Noah watched the porch through the window.

“Can we go home?” Emily asked.

Her question settled heavily in my chest. This was the cottage where their grandparents had welcomed them since infancy, yet Meredith had made them believe they were the intruders.

“No,” I told her. “This is your family’s place. You’re not the ones who need to leave.”

After they went to bed, I worked in the small sunroom, finishing a carved wooden wedding sign that a client was collecting on Monday. As I applied the final coat of protective oil, I heard Meredith ordering Noah to gather firewood because, in her words, he needed to learn how to be useful.

I brought him back inside immediately. Aaron once again claimed that he had not heard her.

Later that evening, Meredith asked me to bring out a decorative serving tray for the final steaks. I carried the tray onto the porch, but I also placed a tightly covered bowl of the stray cat’s fish-based food beneath the serving stand, where its unpleasant odor quickly spoiled everyone’s enthusiasm without touching the meal.

Meredith lifted her fork and frowned.

“What is that smell?”

Russell leaned toward the platter, then pulled back.

“Something around here is awful.”

Meredith looked beneath the stand, found the covered bowl, and turned toward me.

“You did this.”

I stood beside the table.

“Your children required a special dinner. Mine were expected to accept whatever remained. I thought the atmosphere should match the kindness with which you served it.”

It was not my finest moment, and I knew it even then, but graceful conversations had failed for six years because Meredith never listened and Aaron never required her to.

She grabbed the tray as if she intended to throw it aside. Before she could, I removed a folded document from the pocket of my cardigan and placed it on the table.

It was the deed to the cottage.

“Before you damage another thing that belongs to me, listen carefully. You have twenty minutes to collect your luggage and leave my property.”

The Boundary Aaron Wouldn’t Draw

Meredith stared at the document.

“You’re throwing us out over a joke?”

“No. I’m asking you to leave because you took my parents’ room, insulted the food I purchased, ordered my son around, reduced my daughter to tears, and behaved as if my family were beneath yours.”

I turned toward Aaron.

“And you allowed every part of it.”

He rose from his chair.

“Lydia, calm down. This has gone too far.”

“For the first time, it has gone far enough.”

Meredith shoved the tray away. It struck the edge of the table and fell onto the grass with a loud clatter. Emily appeared in the doorway with Noah behind her.

“Mom, are we leaving now?” Noah asked.

The fact that he still believed we should be the ones to retreat hurt more than anything Meredith had said.

I crossed the porch and placed an arm around each child.

“No. We’re staying.”

Meredith began calling me bitter, unsuccessful, and ungrateful. Russell tried to quiet her, while Aaron repeated that everyone was tired and that no family should fall apart over a cookout.

“This is not about dinner,” I said. “It is about the moment you watched your daughter cry and decided that protecting your sister from discomfort mattered more than protecting your child.”

Aaron had no answer.

Meredith stormed upstairs. Twenty minutes later, she and Russell drove away with Connor and Madison, sending gravel across the driveway.

Aaron remained on the porch among the abandoned plates.

“Are you satisfied?” he asked. “You embarrassed my sister.”