My mother-in-law turned up on my porch with three suitcases and called the police when I wouldn't let her in. Then the officer asked my husband one straightforward question about who owned the house — and the silence that followed was the ugliest thing I have ever stood through.

"Have you lived here before?"

"No."

"Do you get post here?"

"No. But my son said I could stay."

And then Beckwith turned to my husband.

"Sir. Do you own this property?"

It is not a hard question.

And Ardan Delaine looked at me, and then at his mother, and then back at that officer, and said:

"Rowan. Can we stop embarrassing everybody, please."

Not Mum, you've misunderstood.

Not Officer, my wife owns the house.

Not I've handled this badly.

Beckwith waited. "Sir. I still need an answer."

And my husband opened his mouth.

And his mother's face changed before he had finished the first word.

---

PART 2 — THE HOUSEWARMING

I bought that house on Oriel Street in 2016.

On my own, at thirty-one, with a deposit I saved over five years doing project work for a health trust, and a mortgage in my sole name that I have paid every month for nine years.