I did not reply again. I finished my double shift, drove my dented Civic home as the sun came up, slept four hours, and then I made two phone calls. The first was to a locksmith who could meet me at the lake house that afternoon. The second was to the smart-home company whose system I’d installed the year before and never told my family about, because I’d learned long ago that information in that family became leverage. By Wednesday evening, every exterior lock on the house was rekeyed, the garage code was changed, the Wi-Fi network was renamed and locked, and the security cameras I’d mounted under the eaves were live on my phone. Then I did the last thing: I called the county sheriff’s non-emergency line and filed a courtesy notice that uninvited guests might attempt to enter my property that weekend, and I emailed them a copy of my deed.

I did not warn my family. They hadn’t warned me for three years. Friday morning, my phone lit up on the nurses’ station while I was charting, and I already knew what the camera feed would show before I opened it. Twenty people in the driveway of a house they could not enter. Coolers, folding chairs, pool floats, a caravan of SUVs. My father at the front door, keying in the old garage code again and again, his face going redder each time. Then my phone rang. I let it ring twice, watching him on the camera pace the porch with the phone to his ear, before I answered. “What did you do to the house?” he screamed. “I secured my property,” I said calmly. “You’re standing on camera, Dad. Wave.”