I thought my nephew’s prank had ruined our dream home, but the real betrayal came when I found out who put him up to it and why. Hi, I’m Ashley. I’m 35, married to Nick, and mom to our 10-year-old daughter, Alice.
We live just outside Columbus, Ohio. I work full time as a middle school librarian, and Nick’s a mechanic. Life’s not glamorous, but we’ve built it piece by piece, and until recently, it was finally starting to feel like everything was falling into place.
The house was our dream. Not a big mansion or anything flashy. Just a cozy, two-story fixer-upper with a good roof, a little garden out back, and the kind of porch you can sit on in the evening with a cup of tea while watching your kid ride her bike.
But it wasn’t handed to us. We saved for almost a decade to get here. I’m talking about skipped birthdays, no-frills holidays, and working extra hours whenever we could.
We lived in an apartment where the heater wheezed in the winter and the neighbors fought through paper-thin walls. Every paycheck that didn’t go to bills got tucked away. “Are you sure you want to sell the canoe?” Nick asked once, holding the paddle like it was a limb he couldn’t believe he was giving up.
…The story doesn’t end here, it continues on the next page 👇
