"She's my mother. Is it really that unreasonable for her to say a few words to you?"
"We're family. There's no need to be so confrontational about this."
He scooted closer to me on the couch and reached for my hand.
I didn't move.
He kept going. "Just call my mom, apologize, delete the comment, and it's done."
"It's not that big a deal. Why blow it up like this?"
I looked him in the eye. "So what you're saying is, him taking my car is fine, but me posting one comment about it is the problem?"
"I'm not saying what he did was fine. I'm saying you shouldn't have handled it that way." His voice climbed a notch. "You couldn't just call me directly? You had to blast it on social media for everyone to see?"
I fired back. "I texted you. You told me you didn't know anything about it."
"Your brother posted about it on social media and you liked it. Your mom and dad liked it too."
"Your entire family knew he took my car, and not a single one of you saw a problem with it. Not one of you told me."
"Have any of you ever respected me?"
That landed. He couldn't quite hold his expression, but he pushed through anyway.
"So what do you want? You want Christian to get on his knees and beg for forgiveness? Or do you actually want to call the cops on him?"
"I just want the respect I'm owed."
"Respect?" Gabriel stood up. "Patsy, do you even understand what it means to be family?"
"With this attitude, drawing lines over every little thing, how do you expect us to have a future together?"
"I draw lines because your family crossed them first." I rose to my feet too. "The car is a small thing. The gas money is a small thing. But not one of you bothered to ask me."
"This was never about the car. It's about the fact that your family thinks everything I own automatically belongs to them."
Gabriel stared at me for a few seconds, his chest rising and falling.
He probably hadn't expected this kind of pushback from me.
For most of the year and a half we'd been together, I'd been easygoing. Agreeable. The kind of woman who let things slide.
He'd probably forgotten I had a temper too.
"Fine. You win. You're right."
He grabbed his briefcase off the coffee table, turned, and headed for the door.
The door slammed hard enough to knock a framed print on the wall crooked.
I didn't go after him.
I sat back down, picked up my phone, and looked at Christian's social media post one more time.
My comment was still there. So was Gabriel's like. Eliana had left two thumbs-up emojis underneath.
After sitting in the quiet for a while, I picked up my phone again and opened the home security system.
The footage rolled forward frame by frame.
Day one of my trip. Tuesday, seven p.m.
Gabriel walked in with his parents and Christian.
Jim Chavez had a cigarette dangling from his lip. Eliana carried a handful of plastic bags and started stuffing things into the fridge the second she crossed the threshold.
Christian kicked off his shoes and bolted upstairs. He came back down within minutes.
"The east room's nice. I'm taking that one."
Gabriel said nothing. He poured him a glass of water.
A little after nine, Christian let someone else in.
His girlfriend, Bess Pruitt.
Bess glanced around as she stepped through the door, her expression wary and a little timid.
Christian draped an arm over her shoulder. "This is my sister-in-law's place, which basically makes it my brother's. Look around all you want."
Gabriel came out of the kitchen, gave a brief nod, and that passed for a greeting.
The next morning, Eliana emerged from the guest room and walked straight to my bedroom door. She pushed it open without knocking.
She stood inside for a moment, then flipped on the walk-in closet light and started rummaging through my things.
She pulled out a few of my dresses and held them up against herself in the mirror.
At two in the afternoon, Christian and Bess went into the master bedroom.
Bess stood by the bed, hesitant. "Your sister-in-law isn't home. Is it really okay for us to be in here?"
