My In-Laws Gifted Us a Condo Out of Nowhere – If Only I Knew What They Really Planned

My husband and I believed that it was a blessing when our in-laws suddenly gave us a condo as a gift. However, there are times when generosity bears a price you do not realize… until it has gotten everything. Cause behind all that pity was a plot that they had been hatching since.

I am Vanessa, 32 and I am married to the most wonderful man who needed better parents than the ones he had. They exploited us, they violated us, and they finally revealed to us their true colors and the extent to which they were capable of going to appear generous whilst pulling all the puppet strings behind our backs.

On a Tuesday, Alexander (my husband) parents, Samuel and Paula called us to dine.

My fork had scarcely been laid down, the last bit of roast still in my mouth, when I saw Samuel push back his chair. I saw him go down the hall and come back with a key ring dangling leisurely off his finger.

You two are congratulated. You’re homeowners!” he grinned, tossing the keys into the hand of Alex. The old condo of mom and dad in Riverside Gardens. Think of it as a early anniversary present.

Oh, my God! Dad? Really?!” cried Alex, with that boyish twinkle in his eyes which I had not seen in years.

Paula and Samuel drew us into an embracing tear being rolled down their faces… and at that, I could not have been any happier.

I was crying in the car when we were driven by Alex to view our new place. It was our first real home, not the tiny studio where we were hardly making ends meet.

I whispered, “I can not believe they did this.”

I can not either, said Alex, and there was something in his voice that made me look around. He wonder in his eyes there was, and something, too, of disbelief flavoured with what seemed a good deal of pain.

Babe, whats wrong? I enquired, giving him my hand.

It-it is our home. I am so happy, Van. I am indeed.” And his voice shook and tears rolled down his face… the tears that come when joy touches something that had once been painful.

The condo was faultless in that faultless manner that sort of made you wish to roll up your sleeves. It was a two-bedroom, the hardwood floors in the house were original and needed to be refinished, and the kitchen was straight out of the 1980s with good bones.

I looked at Alex standing in the empty living room and said, “We will make this place shine.

The following half a year was a blur of trips to the hardware store, take out dinners eaten on the floor, and collapsing into bed at the end of the day with paint beneath our fingernails. We survive on ramen and hope, and dump all extra dollars into making that place our own.

The process of tiling a backsplash was taught to me by YouTube videos. Alex was a self-taught plumber. All the rooms were painted twice as I could not make up my mind on colors.

Just see here! said Alex one night when we dropped on our new couch. I can never believe all this we did.

“We are pretty awesome, I nodded.

That is the same time his sister Lily decided to re-enter our lives in a grand way.

Lily was the opposite of Alex – confident where he was thoughtful and demanding where he was grateful.

She had flunked out of three colleges, and changed careers as often as most people changed clothes, and somehow always managed to come out on her feet because Samuel and Paula were always there to catch her.

“Oh wow!” she remarked as she looked around our place the first time. It is so… comfy. So very DIY chic. I adore the way that you… you know, make do.”

Alex laughed, but I did not fail to notice the tightening of his shoulders. After Lily had gone a curious uneasiness succeeded, and I was too long occupied with what she had said, how so trivial a speech had struck so near the point.

Alex said, “She doesn?t mean anything by it,? but he was cleaning our homemade coffee table as though he were trying to remove her fingerprints.

Why then does it seem that she came in and spit-polished our pride?

He halted, and groaned. That`s Lily all right. She has ever been a critic. Don;t take her into yourself.”

About a month after moving back in with her parents, the gifts Lily was bragging about on Instagram began to pour in. She purchased a new car due to the fact that the previous one was giving strange sounds. Then Lily was surprised with a spa weekend by Paula, as she had a very stressful month.

In the meantime, we were still paying off the credit card we had used to purchase renovation supplies.

I ought to have noticed it at the time, how Alex would clam up whenever Lily was mentioned and the way he would sort of wither each time his parents sucked up to her.

But I was too busy being thankful that we had anything, to realize what we had was actually what we were up against.

The large bust was on a Friday evening following a dinner that we had given Samuel and Paula in our completely fixed up condo. I had just gone to the kitchen to put away the dishes in the dishwasher when I began to hear their voices come in through the hall.

Paula was saying, “They are not even family.” And that was an apartment that was always intended for Lily some day.

It was just as well timed, answered Samuel. They have done the place up without paying contractors, and now Lily is willing to settle down.

They (two) did everything for us. All the betterment and all the upgrade. We did not have to shell out a penny.”

My fingers stopped on the plate I was holding. A weird paralysis was stealing over me as their words sank in, cold and sharp as a knife-blade to the spine.

Lily will love what they have done to it! Paula beamed.

I was standing in our kitchen, our lovely, newly-renovated kitchen, which I had tiled with my own hands, and I felt inside me snap.

I went and told Alex that night, “They are going to give our home to Lily.

He turned white. What are you saying?

I paraphrased what I had heard, and saw him crumble to every word. He did not seem surprised. His appearance was… of a loser.

Why do you not get mad? I demanded. They took advantage of us, Alex.

You see you do not know. I do not want to discuss it… goodnight, he muttered.

Alex said very little during the following days. He was as a shadow in the house. I could read the pain in his eyes… but what I never could comprehend was what he was keeping to himself.

The reality came out during the family meeting the next week. Samuel and Paula appeared carrying coffee and croissants as though they had good news.

Paula started, “We were thinking.” We want our apartment back. Maybe it is time to give it to somebody who deserves it. Lily is well ready to settle down now, and this would suit her down to the ground.”

You mean we have to vacate? I snapped.

We have Changed Our Mind! It is simply the redistributive of family assets, Paula laughed. The two of you are young… and you can begin again anywhere.

“Start over? Weve sacrificed everything to this place.”

And it is beautiful, Samuel said contemptuously. Lily will love it.

What if we do not want to go?

Vanesa, honey, you see this place was never really yours! Samuel piped up. did not sign any papers!

When they went, there was a silence between Alex and me. All was provisional and on loan. And when he did speak at last the truth was revealed.

I remember when I was 16, I had a fight with parents. And mom, she was so mad, she just said: You ought to be thankful that we even took you in. You are not even our son anyway.”

The words fell like a chill touching the warmth out of the room. “Alex…?”

I guessed I always knew, Van. The difference in the manner they treated Lily and I. But to hear it spoken… I suppose it was just habit to be thankful to get whatever they cared to toss me.”

I took him by the hand and drew him to my lap as though I could protect him against all things that ever pained. They do not deserve you, Alex. You are a good man. A nice son. It is “They who are lost… not you.”

He did not talk. JUST hung on, as though my arms were the one part of him where he did not feel second best.

We were given three weeks to vacate. But I was not going without a struggle.

All that we put in is ours, I said to Alex. Appliances, the fixtures, the flooring we install. By law, that becomes our property.

Two weeks to the beat of baby-stripping the condo to its bones. We dragged out the cabinets, pulled down the light fixtures and ripped up with our hands every square inch of flooring that we had installed.

On our final day there I left a message on the original 1980s counter: Thank you, taught me the lesson in family values. We’ll keep it… forever!”

The call was made two days following the move-in by Lily.

What have you done to my apartment? she shouted down the telephone.

I grabbed my stuff, I said coolly.

You ribbed it out! There is nothing here!

They were ourse, Lily. We purchased them.”

I cannot live so! Mom and dad are mad as hell!

I suppose they must be. Perhaps they ought to have considered that before they chose to rob us of our home.

Essentially, it is not your house! She screamned and dropped the line on me. But I was smiling as I hung up the phone.

The actual winning stroke was a month later, when I contacted the lawyer of the grandparents of Alex. I had been wondering about what Alex had said to me, about never fitting in, and it did not feel right.

Mr. Davidson was a long time friend of Alexs grandfather and when we went to meet him in his office he was really surprised to see us.

I thought you would stop in sooner, he remarked, drawing a file. I have something which was intended to be handed to you years back.

He gave Alex an envelope. This was to be delivered to you on reaching 25. But you see your parents said you had had enough help already… and that it was not necessary.”

There was a letter in from Alexis grandfather:

Alex, you have been the Sunshine of my life since the day you arrived to us. I do not care what anybody says about blood or family. You are my grandson in every sense that counts. You fancy more than all the others put together.

Alex read it quietly sobbing, the sort of thing that years had waited to cry.

And half a year later we moved into a new apartment with the sun that strikes exactly in the mornings. It small but the action is in our names… no strings. And we vowed in silent fashion to fill it with warmth and love… since this time we knew how to keep our trust and generosity safe.

And when I said to Alex I was pregnant, he set down the roller right in the middle of a paint-stroke and gaped at me as though I was clasping the moon.

We partied by having pancakes and additional paint. Not bribes, and not crooked schemes disguised in gold paper. Just us.

I heard through the grapevine that Lily only lasted four months in that deprived-down condo before she moved back in with Samuel and Paula. It happens, that she required more than four walls. She had to have somebody to live her life.

I havena regret in the world… not the paint on my clothes, not the tears, and not even the goodbye.

When you eventually learn not to allow some people to exploit you, there are those who accuse you of being cruel. But the fact is this, defending what you have created is not brutality. It’s survival.