Chapter 1: The Door He Left Open
My FIL refused to shut the toilet door no matter how many times I asked — his "nobody tells me what to do in my own house" was the last straw, so I taught him a lesson he'd never forget.
My husband and I moved into his parents' house in March to save for a down payment.
It was supposed to be eight months, maybe ten.
I knew going in that it was their house and their rules.
I was prepared for that.
What I wasn't ready for was the toilet situation.
My father-in-law leaves it open.
Not partway — standing open, with him sitting right there on it, phone in his hand, sometimes for twenty minutes at a stretch.
The toilet is at the top of the stairs, straight across from the hallway that everyone in this house has to walk through to get anywhere.
The first time I told myself he'd forgotten.
By May, I had learned to walk that hallway looking at the floor.
I brought it up once.
Carefully.
Two weeks ago, I came up the stairs at eleven at night, and there he was, door wide, scrolling, and he glanced up at me and didn't move.
The next morning at breakfast, I said, as gently as I know how, that it would mean a lot to me if he could close it.
He set his coffee down.
"You can just not look."
"Dan, I'm not trying to—"
"This is my house," he said it to the table, not to me.
"You live here and now you're going to tell me what I can do in my own bathroom?"
I said that wasn't what I meant.
"I want grandkids," he said.
"If I told you two to get on with that, would it happen tomorrow?
No.
So don't come to me about doors."
I told him the reason we're here at all is that we're saving.
That you don't start a family in someone else's spare bedroom.
He leaned back in his chair.
"You don't have kids.
You don't have a house.
You don't get to talk to me like that under my roof.
The door's wide open if you don't like it.
Nobody's holding you."
I looked across the table at my husband.
He was cutting his eggs.
He didn't look up.
So I let it go.
I had to — we have eleven thousand saved and nowhere else to put ourselves.
He goes at the same time every night.
Ten forty, give or take, phone in hand.
I knew someone had to teach him some basic respect — so last night I was in that hallway before he was.
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What did she do next — and will Dan finally get the message?
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