Only half an hour before, Quinn had been ready to accept all the challenges of becoming a homeowner. Now, however, she sat at the kitchen table and waited for Maria, the previous owner, to return and explain why she was still living in a house that didn’t belong to her or how she didn’t know it was being sold in the first place.

As Quinn waited, she looked around. The room was interesting. The seventies-style orange countertops definitely needed to go, and the floor tiles had seen better days too. She thought the cabinets themselves might be salvageable, with a good sanding and a new paint job. Maybe some different handles on them.

At least the original wainscoting was still in place. That was going to look nice freshened up. The kitchen had good bones and, with some changes, could be exactly how she envisioned.

Quinn felt silly, remembering that she wasn’t here to have coffee with a friend and fantasize about new floors. Her dream house, unfortunately, had come with a family included.

She wondered if she had any sort of trial period where she could back out of the contract. Did house buying include such a clause? Sort of like the thirty-day trial on a new mattress, or the twenty-four-hour clause when you bought a new car? And wasn’t this a criminal matter? Should she call the police? Tell them she’d bought a home and didn’t know it included people, and she wanted them out? What kind of monster would that make her?

“Just let me get them settled so we can talk privately,” Maria had said after leading Quinn into the kitchen, then disappearing into the family room.

To make things worse, Maria had a nice face. Probably about forty or so, she fit the mold of just a regular stressed-out mom. Quinn wished the woman wouldn’t come off as so nice. That would’ve made it easier for Quinn to stand her ground.

She heard a discussion start. The teen boy didn’t sound happy either. The girl piped in with a comment, and her mom shushed her, but she did it kindly, with a gentle voice.

Quinn couldn’t count the times someone had asked her and Ethan if they had children or when they were going to have them. She never could understand how a stranger could look so innocent when asking such a personal question.

“We are childless by choice,” she’d answer, though, truth be told, it was more Ethan’s choice than hers. She never pointed out that they hadn’t even crossed the first milestone of getting married. They’d been together so long they automatically looked the part.