I reached Birchwood Drive twenty-three minutes later.<\/p>\n
The U-Haul was already backed into my driveway.<\/p>\n
Braxton had my garage door open.<\/p>\n
Delia stood beside a stack of plastic storage bins while Mom directed two relatives carrying furniture toward my spare bedroom.<\/p>\n
I parked across the driveway and got out holding my phone.<\/p>\n
Braxton smiled.<\/p>\n
\u201cPerfect. You can help us figure out where everything goes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mom sighed dramatically.<\/p>\n
\u201cNadia, we already discussed this.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou discussed it. I never agreed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Then I held up my phone.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sheriff\u2019s office has my ownership documents. An officer is on the way. You have ten minutes to put everything back in that truck.\u201d<\/p>\n
Braxton laughed.<\/p>\n
Until I opened the county property record showing one owner.<\/p>\n
Me.<\/p>\n
No parents.<\/p>\n
No brother.<\/p>\n
No \u201cfamily home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just Nadia Prescott.<\/p>\n
Dad arrived five minutes later furious that I was \u201ccalling authorities on family.\u201d<\/p>\n
I looked toward his enormous house three miles away.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Braxton needs somewhere to live, you have six empty rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n
That ended that argument quickly.<\/p>\n
When the deputy arrived, he reviewed my identification and deed, then calmly explained that nobody had permission to occupy my property without my consent.<\/p>\n
The furniture went back into the truck.<\/p>\n
Every box followed.<\/p>\n
Mom stood on the sidewalk saying I would regret choosing a house over family.<\/p>\n
I changed the locks that evening anyway.<\/p>\n
Then I removed the emergency key they had somehow copied years earlier and installed cameras at both entrances.<\/p>\n
Braxton and Delia moved into my parents\u2019 guest suite.<\/p>\n
Apparently newborns became much less disruptive once the alternative involved paying rent.<\/p>\n
For fourteen years, my family called the bungalow \u201cours\u201d whenever they wanted something from it.<\/p>\n
That afternoon, the deed taught them a simpler word.<\/p>\n
Mine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I reached Birchwood Drive twenty-three minutes later. The U-Haul was already backed into my driveway. Braxton had my garage door open. Delia stood beside a stack of… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4048,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4190,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4189\/revisions\/4190"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ternalnews.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}