Let me vent some of the complaints I'd been bottling up all day. This was about my family. For background: my parents were divorced, and my mother had already started a new family. Things were peaceful on that side, so I won't get into it.
My dad had found someone too. Things weren't very harmonious, but with me acting as the glue, they'd been getting by before.
Then came the main point. At noon today, while I was at work, my dad suddenly called and told me to go home. He said the keypad lock needed my fingerprint registered. I wondered if the lock had broken—though it shouldn't have. While I was still thinking that, my dad told me it was because my stepmother (note: I used to call her Auntie, since that was what people called her back in my hometown; we used to get along fairly well) had moved all her things out, so he needed to change the lock.
My first thought was that my dad had done something to make her angry again, because he was the domineering type. If you didn't do something the way he wanted, he could give you the cold shoulder for at least three days!
I'd argued with him over this plenty of times myself, so I often took my stepmother's side. That was why they'd only split up now—I'd mediated quite a few of their conflicts.
But while I was still thinking that, here came the real point!
My dad said that today, he'd asked her to go register their marriage (PS: I was the one who made the appointment for them), and my stepmother said she wanted her name added to my property deed, or she wouldn't register the marriage!
Yes, my stepmother!
Yes, my property deed!
And that