My father-in-law looked me dead in the eyes and said I should be grateful they let me sleep in their garage. I was holding his grandchild—his own blood—eight months old with her daddy’s eyes and my stubborn chin, and this man standing in his $3,000 suit in his perfectly manicured backyard wanted me to say thank you for a cot next to the lawn mower. My name is Susie O’Connell.
I’m 29 years old, and three months ago I made the biggest mistake of my life: I moved into my in-laws’ house after my husband Tyler got deployed to Germany. When Tyler first brought up the idea, it sounded almost reasonable. He was going overseas for 14 months.
We had a five-month-old baby. His parents had that big house with three empty bedrooms. His mother, Phyllis, actually cried when she offered.
She said she wanted to help. She said:
“Family takes care of family.”
What she didn’t mention was that I’d become their unpaid servant, their punching bag, and their personal ATM. I gave up our apartment to save money for our future home.
Tyler and I had been married for two years, and we were finally getting our feet under us. We had $47,000 in our joint account, enough for a down payment on a starter home when he got back. Then I moved into the Brennan house.
You know the type. Big columns out front serving no structural purpose whatsoever. A circular driveway designed purely for showing off.
The kind of house that screams, “We have money,” while whispering, “Most of it is credit card debt.” But it looked impressive from the outside, which I would learn was the only thing that mattered to the Brennans. The first week was fine. Phyllis showed me to a nice guest room.
Gerald helped carry my bags. Brooke—Tyler’s older sister—even brought over a casserole. I thought maybe I had been too harsh in my private judgments.
By week two, things shifted. Phyllis mentioned the guest room was actually saved for her sister’s visit. Would I mind moving to the space above the garage?
Just temporarily, of course. The space turned out to be unfinished storage with a camping cot and a space heater that worked about as well as a birthday candle in a blizzard. I’m pretty sure I could have stored ice cream up there without a freezer, but I told myself it was temporary.
Then they took my car. Well, they convinced me to let them keep it “safe.” Phyllis said the neighborhood had break-ins. She said I didn’t need to drive anywhere anyway since everything was right there at the house.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
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