once my sister

Once, when my sister had just had her daughter, my niece Ruby, she came to the city I lived in to introduce me to her infant and to check out grad schools for herself. She had my niece when she was 28, unmarried, so on her own. She decided to go back to school to be a school teacher, reasoning that as a single mom she'd be glad to have the summers off.

My niece Ruby is now a full scholarship sophomore at Smith, so this story is from 19 years ago. BTW.

My daughter, Rosie, and I had some plans the evening my sister expected to arrive at my home. She had driven a few hundred miles. I had left a key to my home in the mailbox of a neighbor, with instructions so my sis could find the key.

The key thing worked out. Rosie and I went to our school evening assembly, Flannery showed up, found the key, hauled her baby and her stuff into my home.

And then my sister rearranged my furniture.

She had never been in my home before.

Who does that? Who goes into someone else's house, with their permission to enter and help themselves to food and the guest room, and then proceeds to rearrange furniture?

My sister said I had things all wrong. My home. My stuff. Wrong.

I remember biting my tongue. I remember wanting to make a snarky remark about how she had arranged her life all wrong, having sex without protection at her age, with a major jerk on a first date.
But I said nothing. And I left the furniture as sis had put it while she stayed with me.