Carol pointed toward my front hallway with her wineglass still in her other hand.

“If you don’t like my rules, get out of this house.”

For a second, the only sound in the dining room was the low jazz station playing from the speaker on the kitchen counter.

I looked at my husband.

Jason was sitting three feet away from me.

He heard her.

He had watched his mother point toward the front door of the house I had lived in for almost seven years.

He lowered his eyes to his plate.

I waited.

Carol waited too.

Jason picked up his fork.

That was my answer.

I pushed my chair back.

“Okay.”

Carol blinked.

“Excuse me?”

I walked into the hallway and took my winter coat from the hook beside the door.

It was New Year’s Eve, and outside the windows, our neighbors had already started setting off small fireworks despite the cold.

Jason finally stood.

“Emily, come on.”

I slipped my arms into my coat.

“What?”

“Don’t make this into something bigger than it is.”

I looked past him at Carol.

She had followed us into the hallway.

Five minutes earlier, she had been complaining that the roast was too dry. Before that, she had turned off the music because she said it was giving her a headache.

Then she had opened the back door to smoke.

I asked her, for probably the tenth time that month, not to smoke right beside the doorway because the smell came into the kitchen.

That was what started it.

Not money.

Not some huge family secret.

A cigarette.

And somehow we had ended up with my mother-in-law ordering me out of my own home while my husband watched.

I picked up my purse.

Carol folded her arms.

“You’re seriously leaving?”

“You told me to.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. I was angry.”

“I know.”

Jason rubbed his forehead.

“Can everybody just calm down?”

I opened the door.

Cold air rushed into the hallway.

Carol immediately complained.

“Close the door. You’re letting all the heat out.”

I almost laughed.

Instead, I stepped outside.

Six Months of Little Rules

My sister Rachel lived twenty minutes away.

When she opened her apartment door and saw me standing there in my coat with my purse still over my shoulder, she didn’t ask many questions.

“Jason?”

“His mother.”

Rachel moved aside.

“That somehow makes more sense.”

I sat at her kitchen table while she made coffee.

Carol had moved into our house six months earlier after selling her condo.

Originally, it was supposed to be temporary.

She wanted time to decide whether she should buy another condo or move closer to Jason’s older brother, Mark.

I had agreed.

The guest room was empty, and Carol had always been difficult, but I thought we could manage a few months.

Within two weeks, she reorganized my pantry.

Then she moved dishes between cabinets because my arrangement was, according to her, “not efficient.”

She began deciding when the thermostat should be adjusted.

She told me we shouldn’t run the dishwasher until it was completely full.

She complained when I bought groceries she considered too expensive.

Once, I came home and found my framed photographs moved from the living room shelves because Carol thought there were “too many pictures of people nobody else knows.”

They were pictures of my college friends.

I put them back.

The next morning, she moved them again.

Jason always had the same response.

“That’s just Mom.”

Or:

“She’s adjusting.”

Or my least favorite:

“Can you let this one go?”

Apparently I could.

Because I did.

Again and again.

Rachel placed a mug in front of me.

“How long are you staying?”

I looked down at my coat. I hadn’t even taken it off yet.

“Tonight.”

Rachel raised an eyebrow.

“And tomorrow?”

“I don’t know.”

That was the truth.

My phone started buzzing at 11:47 p.m.

Jason.

I let it ring once before answering.

“Hello?”

His voice sounded different.

“Em, the furnace stopped.”

I looked at the clock on Rachel’s microwave.

“Completely?”

“I think so. It’s fifty-eight degrees in here already.”

That got my attention.

Our furnace had been having problems for weeks.

I had called a local HVAC company after noticing it cycling strangely. Their technician, Mike Reynolds, had inspected it twice.

The control board was failing.

A replacement had been ordered, but because of the holiday schedule, installation wasn’t supposed to happen until the first week of January.

Mike had shown me how to reset the system if it shut down before then.

Jason had been home during one of Mike’s visits.

He never came downstairs.

Carol had.

She stood in the kitchen watching me take notes and said, “Emily likes playing handyman.”

Now Jason was breathing into the phone.

“Tell me what to do.”

I set my coffee down.

“Call Mike’s company.”

“They’re closed.”

“They have an emergency number.”

“Emily, you know how to reset it.”

I said nothing.

“Can you just come home?”

Rachel looked over at me from the couch.

I walked toward the window.

“Why would I come fix a house where I’m apparently not welcome?”

Jason lowered his voice.

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Use this to punish us.”

“I’m not.”

And I wasn’t.

I gave him the emergency number from my phone.

Then I told him where the two electric space heaters were stored in the basement.

“Put one in the living room and one upstairs. Don’t plug both into the same circuit.”

“Okay.”

“And don’t use the oven to heat the house.”

“I know that.”

Behind him, I heard Carol saying something.

Then Jason said, “Mom wants to know when you’re coming back.”

I stared through Rachel’s window at the parking lot below.

“She told me to leave.”

“She didn’t mean permanently.”

“That sounds like something she should explain herself.”

Another pause.

Then Jason said, “Emily, this is my house too.”

That sentence stopped me.

Not because it was new.

Because of how easily he said it.

I leaned against the windowsill.

“Before you call the technician, Jason, you might want to remember whose name is actually on the deed.”

He went quiet.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Good night.”

I hung up.

The Name on the Service Contract

Mike called me at 8:12 the next morning.

I was asleep on Rachel’s couch.

“Sorry to bother you on New Year’s Day, Emily.”

I sat up.

“It’s okay.”

“I got an emergency request from your address. Jason said the furnace is down.”

“It is.”

“I can get there around nine-thirty, but the service agreement is under your name. I just need authorization before I do anything beyond an emergency inspection.”

I rubbed my eyes.

“I’ll meet you there.”

Rachel insisted on driving me.

When we pulled into my driveway, Mike’s van was already parked at the curb.

My house looked exactly the way it always did.

Gray siding.