Ashley gave me many notes.
The first time she called the condo “our beach place,” I let it pass.
The second time, she said it in front of her mother.
“We’re thinking of doing a rotating family summer down at our Gulf Shores place,” she said, stirring lemon into her iced tea.
I looked at Darren.
He looked at his plate.
I told myself she meant no harm. Young people used words loosely now. Everything was “ours” if they had ever slept there twice.
Then she began sending me little suggestions.
“You really should update the bedding.”
“The balcony furniture photographs a bit dated.”
“Could you maybe replace the hallway rug? My friends are used to a cleaner look.”
My friends.
Not our family. Not Darren and me. Not you, Loretta.
My friends.
Still, I swallowed it.
When the insurance jumped after the storms, I paid it. When the property owners’ association sent an assessment after the pool deck needed repairs, I paid it. When the air conditioner leaked one winter after Ashley’s cousins stayed there and nobody told me until the mattress in the guest room smelled musty, I paid to replace it.
Darren apologized then, sort of.
“Mom, Ashley feels awful.”
Ashley did not call me.
Instead, she texted a link to a mattress sale and wrote, “This one has good reviews.”
That was the way of it for years. A request here. A little assumption there. A borrowed weekend that became a family tradition. A gate code shared with someone’s sister. A “quick stay” that turned into five nights and a bag of damp towels left in the bathtub.
I kept records because Ray taught me that.
“Receipts don’t argue,” he used to say.
At the time, I thought he meant money.
Later, I learned he meant people.
