“You and the baby will stay with your parents for three months,” he said coldly. “I need to rest.”
I didn’t argue. I didn’t beg him to change his mind.
I simply closed the trunk, picked up my phone, and called my father.
My husband thought he had just kicked me out of his home.
He had no idea whose name was actually on the deed.
PART 1
“Your suitcases are already in the trunk. Tomorrow, when you get discharged from the hospital with the baby, Mason will drive you to your parents’ place. He needs to rest for at least three months.”
It took Maya several seconds to process that her mother-in-law was actually being serious.
She was still sitting up in her hospital bed, sore and recovering from childbirth, watching her newborn son sleep peacefully inside the tiny plastic bassinet beside her. On the other end of the line, Teresa continued talking with the supreme confidence of someone who had already made a decision for the entire family.
“The first few months are the absolute worst, Maya. The baby is going to scream in the middle of the night, you’re going to be exhausted, cranky… and Mason has so much pressure at work right now. If he doesn’t sleep, who is going to pay the bills?”
Maya pressed her lips into a tight line. “And what about me?”
“You’ll be much better off staying with your mother. She knows how to take care of newborns, she can make you warm soup, help you bathe him. Meanwhile, my son gets some peace and quiet in the apartment so he can get everything in order.”
That last sentence almost made Maya laugh out loud.
The two-bedroom condo where she and Mason had lived for the past two years didn’t belong to Mason.
It didn’t even belong to both of them.
It was owned outright by Maya’s father, Richard, who had bought it years ago as an investment property and lent it to them rent-free while they saved up to build their own financial foundation. All he had ever asked was that they handle the HOA fees and utilities.
Yet, Mason had grown accustomed to calling it his place surprisingly quickly.
And now, his mother had casually decided that Maya—fresh out of labor and holding a newborn—should pack up and leave her own home so her precious son could catch up on his beauty sleep.
“I understand, Teresa,” Maya replied, her voice dropping into a calm so icy it visibly caught her mother-in-law off guard.
“Good! I’m so glad you’re being reasonable.”
Maya hung up the phone. Instead of crying, she called her father.
Richard answered on the second ring from his woodworking shop. “Hey, sweetheart. How’s my grandson?”
Maya told him everything.
Silence stretched over the line for five full seconds.
“So,” Richard said slowly, “Mason wants to stay by himself for three months to ‘get my apartment in order.’”
“That’s what his mother said.”
Richard let out a soft, low chuckle. “Wonderful. We should never get in the way of a young man trying to work hard.”
The next morning, Mason arrived at the hospital carrying a bouquet of five supermarket roses, a giant smile, and a look far too well-rested for a first-time father.
He kissed Maya’s forehead, glanced at the baby for a few seconds, and immediately began pushing to get the discharge paperwork finalized.
When they reached the hospital parking garage, Mason popped the trunk of his sedan.
There they were.
Two massive blue hard-shell suitcases packed to the brim with Maya’s clothes.
He hadn’t even intended to take her back to the apartment first to pack her own belongings.
“Babe, don’t take it the wrong way,” Mason said smoothly, adjusting his jacket. “It’s just for a few months. My mom is right. I’ve got huge corporate projects coming up and I need my sleep. You’ll be way more comfortable with your parents.”
Maya looked at the suitcases, then at her husband’s smiling face.
“Alright.”
Mason blinked, caught off guard. “Wait, really?”
“Yes. Let’s head to my parents’ house.”
The entire drive over, Mason chatted enthusiastically about all the “pending house projects” he was going to tackle while he had the place to himself. But Maya already knew that stashed beneath his back seat was a brand-new gaming console he had bought himself as a “fatherhood gift.”
When they pulled up to her parents’ driveway, Mason got out, unloaded the heavy luggage, and offered a self-satisfied grin. “I’ll come visit you guys every weekend!”
Just then, the front door opened.
Richard walked out onto the porch holding a heavy steel toolbox in one hand and a giant contractor’s level in the other.
“Mason! Perfect timing, son!”
Mason’s smile faltered.
Richard strolled over, popped the trunk of Mason’s car, and tossed his heavy tools directly onto the carpeted floor.
“Maya told me you’re taking three months off from baby duty to get my apartment in tip-top shape,” Richard beamed, clapping a heavy hand on Mason’s shoulder. “I think that’s a fantastic idea.”
“Well… I mostly meant doing some light cleaning—”
“Nonsense, son! If we’re doing it, we’re doing it right. The master bathroom has a leak behind the tile, the hardwood in the hallway is warping, and the balcony deck needs a complete overhaul. I already put together a list of materials.”
Mason went pale. “What list?”
Richard grinned, slamming the trunk shut with an authoritative thud. “We’re hitting the hardware store first. You buy the materials, and I’ll provide the muscle and expertise.”
Maya gathered her baby into her arms and walked toward the front door. Before stepping inside, she turned back and offered her husband a warm, sweet smile.
“Have fun these next three months, boys!”
And seeing the sheer panic flashing across Mason’s eyes, Maya knew her husband hadn’t the faintest idea of what he had just brought upon himself.
PART 2
Two hours later, Mason unlocked the front door of his apartment with Richard trailing right behind him, watching his dream of a three-month gaming staycation crumble into ash.
Sitting on the coffee table were cold energy drinks, bags of snacks, and the unboxed gaming console he had planned to inaugurate that very evening.
Richard took one look at it. “Pack that up.”
“What? Why?”
“Dust,” Richard said simply.
Before Mason could open his mouth, his father-in-law unplugged the console, wrapped the cords neatly, and shoved it back into its box.
“We start with the hallway flooring.”
“Today? Right now?”
“Of course. Why wait?”
“I literally just picked my wife up from the hospital!” Mason argued.
Richard turned, fixing him with a quiet, unyielding glare. “And your wife literally just pushed your son into the world. If she can start her first day of mothering today, you can start your first day of building a proper home for him.”
Mason opened his mouth, but no words came out.
The first forty-eight hours were an absolute nightmare.
After putting in eight hours at his desk job, Mason returned home only to find Richard waiting for him wearing an N95 mask, work gloves, and a fresh list of demolition tasks.
They stripped peeling paint.
They pried up water-damaged bathroom tiles.
They spackled drywall cracks.
They hauled sixty-pound bags of concrete mix up three flights of stairs when the building elevator went out of service.
By midnight every night, Mason collapsed onto a thin air mattress because Richard had covered the living room sectional in heavy plastic drop cloths to protect the fabric.
By Saturday morning, Mason could barely lift his arms to pour a cup of coffee.
“This is insane,” Mason groaned, rubbing his aching lower back. “It’s too much.”
“Raising a newborn is heavy lifting, too,” Richard remarked casually while mixing a bucket of mortar. “Consider yourself lucky. You’ve got three whole months free of diaper changes to get this out of your system.”
Around noon, Teresa showed up.
She marched into the apartment carrying a covered dish of lasagna, expecting to find her son lounging peacefully on the couch in his sweatpants.
The second she opened the front door, a thick cloud of drywall dust made her cough hysterically.
“Mason!”
She found him on his knees, hair covered in white powder, sweat pouring down his face, his hands covered in angry red blisters.
“Oh, honey! What on earth did they do to you?!”
Richard emerged from the bathroom wearing safety goggles and holding a pry bar. “Teresa! You came at the perfect time.”
“What is going on in this apartment?!” she demanded.
“We’re remodeling,” Richard explained smoothly. “It was Mason’s idea to get the place immaculate before Maya and the baby come home. Isn’t that right, Mason?”
