My Daughter-in-Law Charged Me to Open the Fridge, So I Cut the Power

1: 1

Three in the morning, and my grandson's fever hit a hundred and two.

My son and daughter-in-law slept so deep I couldn't wake them, so I felt my way through the dark, dosed the boy with medicine, and pulled a fever-cooling patch from the fridge.

The next day, a new payment QR code had appeared on the fridge door.

【Two dollars per opening. Cooling loss billed separately.】

My daughter-in-law, Lucia Perry, said, : 「Mom, you're living in our home. You can't just use everything for free. Young people are under a lot of pressure. You need to respect boundaries.」

My son, Abner Whitney, chimed in too, : 「It's only two dollars. Just scan it and be done with it.」

I scanned it. Two dollars.

Then I took out a calculator.

Overnight care for a feverish child, eight hundred. Giving medicine, three hundred. Changing his clothes, one-fifty. Cleaning up the vomit, two hundred.

Fourteen hundred and fifty total.

「Even between close family, the accounts should be clear. When are you two paying me?」

Lucia ripped the bill to shreds, and that same night she went online and called me a bloodsucking mother-in-law.

What she didn't know.

This apartment she'd plastered with payment codes had never belonged to her.

1

「Mom, the notice on the fridge door. Did you not see it?」

Lucia stood with her arms crossed, blocking the kitchen doorway.

There was a sheet of paper taped to the fridge.

Two dollars per opening.

Over ten seconds, one dollar extra.

No advance notice, double.

At the very bottom was her payment QR code.

I still had four-year-old Jim Martinez in my arms. His fever had only just broken, his head resting on my shoulder, his lips dry.

「Jim had a fever last night. I was getting medicine.」

「Getting medicine still means opening the fridge.」

Lucia pointed at the clock on the wall.

「You opened it once at 3:17 a.m., and again at 3:24. First for the fever patch, then for warm water. That's four dollars. No notice, so it doubles. Eight.」

I thought I'd misheard.

「Your son's fever spiked to a hundred and two, and you're charging me eight dollars?」

She corrected me, : 「He's my son, and your grandson. Don't act like you suffered some huge injustice.」

Abner came out of the bedroom, his hair sticking up from sleep.

「What's all the fighting about this early?」

I set Jim down on the couch.

「I knocked on your door for half an hour last night. Jim threw up all over himself, and neither of you got up. Now your wife is charging me eight dollars in fridge fees.」

Abner yawned.

「Lucy hasn't been sleeping well lately. The doctor said she can't be woken up. And it's only eight dollars anyway. Just scan it and be done with it.」

I looked at him.

This was the son I'd raised for thirty years.

The child was burning up to the point of convulsions, and he heard nothing.

His wife mentioned eight dollars, and his ears cleared right up.

Lucia took out her phone and held the QR code up in front of me.

「Mom, I'm not targeting you. The fridge gets opened and shut all day. It wastes electricity and affects how fresh the food stays. Young people these days live carefully. We can't be muddleheaded about it the way your generation was.」

I scanned. Eight dollars.

The payment chime sounded, and her face relaxed.

「That's more like it. When a family spells out the rules, it actually keeps things from turning sour.」

「You're right.」

I pulled out the calculator.

「Last night, three to five-thirty, that's two and a half hours of overnight care. A live-in night nanny in this city starts at three hundred an hour. Call it seven-fifty.」

Lucia's smile was gone.

「Took his temperature six times, twenty each, that's one-twenty.」

「Gave medicine twice, fifty each, one hundred.」

「Changed his pajamas, wiped him down, washed the sheets, three hundred total.」

「He threw up on me, so my sweater went to the dry cleaner's, eighty.」

I hit the equals key.

「Thirteen hundred and fifty. Take off the eight, and you two owe me thirteen forty-two.」

Abner frowned, : 「Mom, aren't you just being difficult?」

「How is that being difficult? If opening the fridge once can be billed, why can't caring for the child?」

Lucia pushed my phone away.

「A grandmother caring for her grandson is only natural. You charge money for that, and you're not afraid people will laugh if word gets out?」

「A mother-in-law opening her daughter-in-law's fridge is only natural too. How come you're not afraid people will laugh?」

Her face dropped.

「This is my home! I'll set the rules however I want!」

I glanced around the living room.

A thirteen-hundred-square-foot apartment. Three bedrooms, two living areas.

Three years ago, Abner said money was tight since he'd just gotten married, so I asked my old friend Maud to lend them this empty place to live in.

I didn't take a cent in rent.

I paid the HOA dues.

The water, electricity, and gas were all tied to my card too.

Lucia had lived here for three years.

And now she stood in this apartment, charging me two dollars every time I opened the fridge.

I nodded.

「Fine. Starting today, we'll do everything by your rules.」