I walked down the hall. Max’s door was open. His bedside lamp was on the floor, the base cracked in half, the bulb shattered.
Little bits of glass glittered in the carpet.
In Lily’s room, her stuffed animals were scattered. Drawers open. Her favorite blanket wadded up near the closet.
“Did we get robbed?”
This didn’t look like someone had “stayed over.”
It looked like the aftermath of a party. A big one.
Max stood in his doorway, staring at the broken lamp.
“Did we get robbed?” he asked quietly.
“No,” I said. My voice sounded flat. “Aunt Mandy stayed here, remember?”
His face crumpled. “She broke my stuff?”
“What happened here?”
Dave’s jaw was tight. “I’m calling her.”
We walked back to the kitchen. I dialed Mandy and hit speaker.
She picked up on the third ring. “Heyyy,” she said. “You guys home?”
“What happened here?” I asked.
I tried to keep my voice steady. I don’t think I did.
A beat of silence. “What do you mean?”
She let out this irritated sigh.
“The house is trashed,” I said. “There are beer bottles everywhere. Trash everywhere. The kids’ rooms are messed with. Max’s lamp is broken.”
She let out this irritated sigh.
“I had Christmas,” she said. “You said I could stay.”
“You promised it would just be you,” I said. “No parties. No guests.”
She gave a little laugh. “You’re being dramatic. It’s not that bad. You’re super picky about cleanliness. I was going to come back and clean.”
“I’m going over there.”
“There is shattered glass in my kid’s carpet,” I snapped. “He could have stepped on it.”
“Okay, relax,” she said. “I can’t afford to replace a lamp right now. Renovations are killing me. It’s just stuff. The kids are fine.”
I hung up before I said something I couldn’t take back.
Dave stared at me. “I’m going over there,” he said.
“It’s late,” I said.
“I don’t care.”
“You’re not going to believe this.”
He grabbed his keys and left.
I stood there, looking at the mess, my hands shaking. I started picking up bottles because doing something felt better than standing still.
About an hour later, the front door opened.
Dave walked in, pale and furious in a way I’d never seen before.
“What did she say?” I asked.
He shut the door slowly. “You’re not going to believe this,” he said. “She didn’t just disrespect our house.”
“She played us. From the start.”
My chest tightened. “What else did she do?”
He looked at me. “She played us. From the start.”
“Explain,” I said.
“I went to her apartment,” he said. “She tried to block the door. Told me it was a disaster zone. Said the renovation was worse. Said it wasn’t a good time.”
He gave a short, bitter laugh.
“So I stepped outside and called Mom.”
“I pushed past her,” he went on. “And guess what? No renovation. None. The place was clean. Finished. Normal. Kitchen intact. No dust. No boxes.”
My stomach dropped. “So she lied.”
“Yeah,” he said. “And when I asked why she really needed our house, she kept dodging. Changing the subject. Trying to guilt-trip me.”
He rubbed the back of his neck.
“So I stepped outside and called Mom,” he said. “Put her on speaker. Told her everything. Mom started asking Mandy questions. Dates. Contractor names. Basic stuff.”
“At first, Mandy cried.”
He paused.
“At first, Mandy cried,” he said. “Then she denied everything. Then she went silent. And then she came clean.”
I braced myself. “What did she say?”
“She saw a post online,” he said. “Some group looking to rent a private house for a Christmas party. Cash. No questions. She knew we’d be gone. Our house is bigger than hers. Fewer close neighbors. So she lied about the renovation to guilt us into saying yes.”
My mouth went dry.
“And fully planned to leave the mess for us.”
“She rented out our house?” I whispered.
He nodded. “She let strangers in. Took their money. And fully planned to leave the mess for us.”
I sat down at the table hard enough that my chair scraped.
“What did she say when you called her out?”
“She said she needed the money,” he answered. “That it was just one night. That she didn’t think it would get ‘that bad.’ Like that made it okay.”
“I told her she had to pay for everything.”
He looked up at me. “I told her she had to pay for everything. Cleaning. Damage. All of it. She crossed her arms and said she wasn’t paying a cent. Said we were ‘overreacting’ and ‘comfortable enough’ to handle it.”
Something in me went very, very calm.
“We’re done asking,” I said.
He studied my face. “What are you thinking?”
“We go back tomorrow,” I said. “And we stop being nice about it.”
The next day, we drove to Mandy’s apartment together.
She opened the door with puffy eyes and an annoyed expression.
“Again?” she said. “Can we not drag this out? It was a party, not a crime.”
I looked her in the eye.
“We’re filing a lawsuit,” I said.
She froze. “You’re joking.”