I secretly bought a house. On moving day, I found my sister’s husband and his family with movers,
The Invasion of Oakwood Hills
The Uninvited Guests
“You’re single, so you don’t need a house this big, Jenny. We’re family; of course, it should be shared, right?”
My mother Diane’s voice spilled casually from my smartphone speaker, as light-hearted as if she were discussing tomorrow’s dinner plans.
She knew perfectly well that it was the day I was moving into my new home, yet she said it so matter-of-factly over the phone.
An hour earlier, I had pulled my car up in front of the long-awaited glass-walled mansion perched on the slopes of Oakwood Hills.
It was the move-in day for my million-dollar sanctuary, the reward I had earned after six years of sweat-soaked, mud-stained effort.
Normally, this should have been a radiant moment: the moving truck arriving with my belongings, the symbolic start of a new chapter in my life.
Instead, what greeted me was something I never could have imagined.
Parked in my driveway was a massive moving truck I didn’t recognize, and the workers hustling back and forth weren’t carrying my things.
A faded sofa, a gaudy gold display cabinet with atrocious taste—there was no doubt about it.
The furniture belonged to my sister Lucy’s house.
“More to the right! Don’t scratch it! This is my new office and home, you know!”
The arrogant shout echoing from the terrace belonged to my brother-in-law Steve, a self-proclaimed CEO whose business hadn’t made a cent yet.
He was barking orders as if this mansion had been his all along.
Through the vast glass wall of the living room, I could see Lucy chasing her three children around.
They were running across the solid wood floors I had just custom finished, floors that still smelled of fresh wax, with their shoes on.
I couldn’t get out of the car before anger could take over.
A sharp sense of observation cut through their sheer selfishness.
With trembling fingers, I pressed the record button on my phone and quietly began documenting this unbelievable invasion.
The moving checklist on my dashboard looked painfully absurd in the face of this grotesque scene.
At last, I stepped out of the car and walked one step, then another, toward my sanctuary.
“Hey, you there! You’re in the way! Move!”
One of the movers yelled at me, assuming I was just an outsider.
I ignored him, strode through the front door, and marched straight into the living room.
There, on top of the Italian quartz kitchen island I had spent months selecting, sat greasy fast-food bags.
And right beside them sat Lucy, holding a glass.
“Oh, Jenny, you’re here already! I was hoping to make it a surprise! Did Mom tell you?”
Lucy greeted me with a beaming smile, completely unapologetic.
“Lucy, what is going on here? Why is your furniture being moved into my house? Why are your kids running around inside my home?”
My voice came out lower than I expected, even to myself.
“What do you mean, what’s going on? Didn’t Mom explain? You weren’t seriously planning to live alone in a house this big, were you?”
She replied.
“That would be such a waste! We’ve been struggling because our current place doesn’t have enough bedrooms for the kids, and Steve said that to launch his new business, he needed an address that looks more successful.”
She continued.
“We’re family; it’s only natural to help each other out, right?”
Her tone made it sound as if they were doing me a favor by using my house.
Behind her, Lucy’s children pressed their mud-covered hands against the custom glass wall I had just installed.
The Architect of Exploitation
“I never agreed to anything like this! Take all the furniture outside immediately! Tell the movers to stop!”
I said this firmly.
Steve, who had been on the terrace, walked into the room with a scowl.
“Hey, hey, Jenny, don’t get so worked up! We’re family, aren’t we?”
He began.
“Sure, you might be paying the mortgage, but it’s our job to make good use of this amazing environment! If I invite my clients here, my business will take off in no time, and when it does, I’ll even pay you some maintenance fees!”
He exclaimed.
“Maintenance fees?”
I was speechless.
The million dollars I had earned by working without sleep, being yelled at by male workers on construction sites, and clawing my way up one cent at a time—to them, it was nothing more than a prop for their business.
They didn’t see me as a person at all; I was just a convenient wallet, a provider of empty rooms.
Steve didn’t seem to realize how shameless his words were.
If anything, he looked smug, as though he were generously offering me a benefit.
As I stood frozen in the center of the living room, movers passed by carrying a massive refrigerator.
It was an old, battered model from Lucy’s house.
Watching it come dangerously close to scraping my custom kitchen cabinets, I finally broke my silence.
“Lucy, Steve, how did you even get into this house in the first place? I locked the front door myself last night, right after I received the keys from the realtor.”
At my question, Lucy stopped giving instructions to the movers and smiled a triumphant smile tinged with unmistakable contempt.
She pulled a single key from her pocket, dangling from a familiar keychain, and deliberately waved it in front of my eyes.
“This key? I got it from Mom.”
She said.
“Jenny is so busy with work that she probably won’t have time to prepare for the move, so you, her family, should go in first and get the house ready for living.”
It felt like I’d been struck in the head with a blunt object.
That key was the one I had reluctantly handed over to my mother a few weeks earlier after she had persistently begged for it.
“So I can help clean when you’re not home and water your plants,”
She had said, practically forcing me to give her a spare key.
I never imagined she would hand it straight to my sister and her husband and use it to let them occupy my house before me on the very day I was supposed to move in.
With shaking hands, I pulled out my phone and called my mother immediately.
The call didn’t even ring twice before she picked up, her cheerful voice filling the speaker.
“Oh, Jenny, have you arrived at your new place already? Lucy and her family should be there helping you out! Surprised?”
She asked.
“Surprised? Why did you give Lucy the key to my house? They’re moving their furniture in without my permission! Make them stop right now!”
At what was almost a scream of protest, my mother’s tone instantly shifted into that of a parent lecturing a stubborn child.
“Jenny, calm down! You really only think about yourself, don’t you? You don’t need a house that big; just maintaining it will be a burden.”
She lectured.
“Lucy has three children and Steve’s new business needs a respectable address to attract investors! This is a chance for the whole family! It’s incredibly selfish of you to monopolize that house all by yourself!”
She shouted.
“Business? Have you forgotten how many times Lucy and Steve have failed before, and how much of your retirement savings they burned through? The crypto crash, that fancy restaurant that went bankrupt—every single time, you asked me to pitch in too, didn’t you?”
When I said that, Steve, who had been listening nearby, turned bright red.
He pointed a finger at me and cut in aggressively.
“Hey, don’t drag up the past! That was just the market behaving unpredictably; it had nothing to do with my abilities! This time is different! My AI consulting business is already catching the attention of Silicon Valley investors!”
He yelled.
“I can’t meet them using some run-down rental apartment address! I need the Oakwood Hills brand!”
Lucy stepped forward as well, as if to back him up.
“That’s right, Jenny! Sharing this house is your natural duty as a family member! More than half the truck is already unloaded, and we’ve started the kids’ school transfer paperwork!”
She insisted.
“What are you talking about? This is my house! I paid for it!”
I cried.
“No, Jenny! Even the money you earned ultimately comes from the fact that we raised you and paid for your education! That means your assets are the family’s assets, too! Lucy and Steve are already preparing to give up their current house! The facts are already in place!”
With that, my mother hung up on me unilaterally.
