While I was at work, my parents, my sister, and her two kids were already hauling boxes into my mountain house. Mom smiled like it was settled. “We all live here now. It’s family property.” They planned their big “move-in day.” I planned something else.

After she hung up, I sat frozen in my chair.

Shame. Anger. Disbelief.

They blended together until I couldn’t tell which feeling was which.

I stared at my hands, trembling above my keyboard.

Jess stopped beside my desk.

“Hey. What happened?”

“They called CPS,” I said hollowly. “They said I made the kids homeless.”

She inhaled sharply.

“That’s… that’s awful. That’s not even manipulative anymore. That’s malicious.”

I nodded numbly.

“They’ll keep escalating.”

“Then you’ll keep protecting yourself,” she said firmly. “You’re not alone.”

Her words steadied me, but only slightly.

Even when I returned home, the cabin felt less safe—not because the locks weren’t strong. They were. But because the threat wasn’t physical anymore.

It was something else.

Something unhinged and unpredictable.

That night, my father showed up.

I heard the crunch of gravel around six, just as the sun slipped behind the ridge. My stomach tightened as I looked through the peephole and saw him standing there with his hands shoved in his jacket pockets, head lowered.

I opened the door halfway but kept my body blocking the entrance.

“Dad,” I said quietly.

He exhaled, his breath visible in the cold air.

“Can we talk?”