She sent back three dots before asking what I was talking about, which prompted me to explain that I had changed the locks last week. I told her that it was a smart lock now and that no one could get inside the apartment without a code from me.
That specific answer took a full minute for her to process, which gave me enough time to imagine the tense scene inside her car. I pictured her reading the message while Brandon asked what was wrong and his parents made confused remarks from the back seat.
I imagined the children already being hungry and the luggage already being loaded because everyone assumed that I would fold under the pressure. Tiffany finally responded by calling me selfish and accusing me of not telling anyone about the change in security.
In my family, being selfish always meant refusing to be useful on command rather than taking over someone else’s home without asking. It never meant volunteering someone else’s space or expecting a divorced father to subsidize everyone’s convenience with his own rent money.