She stepped further in.
“Excuse me,” she said.
No one responded.
“Excuse me,” she said again.
A few heads turned.
Then Megan appeared, already smiling, moving through the room with practiced ease.
“Oh, Eleanor! You’re early.”
Eleanor let the silence stretch.
“I live here,” she said.
Megan waved a hand lightly, as if smoothing out an inconvenience.
“Yes, of course, but Robert said tomorrow, so we thought we had time. Since everyone’s already here, we didn’t think you’d mind. It’s just family and friends. We were just making use of the space.”
Eleanor looked around—at strangers, at shoes near her door, at sand on her floor, at glass she recognized from an estate sale years ago.
She looked back at Megan.
“Ask them to leave,” she said.
The room shifted. Conversation faltered in uneven pieces.
Megan blinked. “Sorry?”
“Ask them to leave. This is not your house.”
The man on the sofa lowered his feet. Music volume dropped. People looked toward exits.
Megan’s smile tightened. “Don’t be like this. It’s one weekend. Honestly—”
Her tone changed slightly. “It’s selfish, isn’t it? Keeping all this space when you barely use it.”
There it was. No longer implied.
Eleanor felt something inside her settle fully into place.
“I said,” she replied, “ask them to leave.”
Megan crossed her arms. “Or what? You’ll throw out your own family? After everything Robert does for you?”
Eleanor met her eyes.
“My son does not do anything for me that I have not already arranged for myself.”
“That’s not how it looks,” Megan said sharply. “You’re sitting on property people could actually enjoy. That’s not generosity—that’s—”
She stopped, then let it land.
“—leech behavior.”
The word clarified everything. No ambiguity left.
Eleanor exhaled once.
“Get out,” she said.
The room fell completely silent.
Her voice did not rise. It did not shake. It simply carried the finality of a decision already made.
“I want everyone out of this house. Now. If I need to, I will call the police.”
That was enough.
People began leaving quickly. A glass was set down. A chair scraped. Within minutes, the house emptied until only Eleanor and Megan remained.
“You’re overreacting,” Megan said, but less certain now.
Eleanor walked to the hallway desk. The folder had been placed there weeks earlier. She took it out calmly.
