The display shelf in my living room was empty. I stood in the living room dragging my suitcase, my hand still gripping the handle. I had been away on a business trip for seven days. When I left, the shelf held twelve Yixing clay teapots, six tea sets, and a pair of blue-and-white porcelain vases. Now—there was nothing. The dust was still there, but the items were gone. I put down my suitcase and walked towards the bedroom. The door to the walk-in closet was open. My row of designer bags—three Chanels, two Hermès, and a vintage leather handbag my mom left me—all gone. My phone chimed. A text message: Your package has been delivered. I hadn't shipped any packages. I opened the shipping app and went to "Shipping History." Fifty orders. Over the past seven days, fifty boxes had been shipped from this address. I scrolled down. Recipient: David Miller. My brother-in-law. The note section on the last order read just three words— "The rest of the books." Our home office had over two thousand books. I put down my phone and walked to the doorway of the office. The bookshelves were empty. Only the nails remained. 1. I didn't go into the office. I turned around and walked through every room in the house. The living room: The display shelf was empty, the speakers under the TV cabinet were gone, the floor lamp in the corner was gone, the clay teapots on the tea table were gone. The tea table was still there. The teapots were gone. Like a skeleton picked clean of its meat. The master bedroom: The walk-in closet was mostly cleared out. My bags, jewelry boxes, and that mink coat were all gone. Not a single thing belonging to my husband, Mark Miller, had been touched. The guest bedroom: The air conditioning unit had been uninstalled and taken away. The air conditioning unit. I stood at the doorway of the guest bedroom looking at the hole in the wall. The copper pipes had been cleanly severed, cut with professional tools. She had even called someone in to uninstall the AC. My daughter's room. I pushed the door open. The piano was gone. That Yamaha grand piano cost $55,000. My daughter had been taking lessons for four years, practicing for two hours every day. The piano bench was still there, the music stand was still there, the metronome was still on the desk. The piano was gone. Four deep indentations on the hardwood floor, perfectly square. I squatted down and pressed my fingers against the indentations. Cold. I stood up and walked to the balcony. The plants on the balcony were also gone. Twelve pots of orchids. I had raised them for six years. The pots were still there. The soil was still there. The flowers were gone. Even the flowers. I walked back from the balcony to the living room and stood in front of the empty display shelf, and started counting. The items on the display shelf. The books in the office. The bags and jewelry in the closet. The AC in the guest room. My daughter's piano. The orchids on the balcony. The speakers and lamp in the living room. This wasn't "taking a few things." This was moving out. Emptying my home. I took out my phone and reopened the shipping app. Fifty orders. Shipping times ranged from Monday to Sunday, six to eight orders every day. Monday: eight orders. Tuesday: seven orders. Wednesday: eight orders. Thursday: six orders. Friday: seven orders. Saturday: eight orders. Sunday: six orders. Shipping every single day. Every day. How did she manage it? The day I left for my business trip was an early Monday morning flight. She started on Monday. I called Mark. It rang five times before he picked up. "You're back?" "Where are the things in the house?" "What things?" "The things on the display shelf. The books in the office. My bags. Our daughter's piano. The speakers in the living room. The orchids on the balcony. The AC in the guest bedroom." Silence. "Mark." "...Mom said she wanted to declutter." "Declutter? Fifty boxes shipped to your brother's house is called decluttering?" More silence. A longer silence. "I didn't know there was that much." I hung up the phone. I stood in the middle of the living room and slowly turned in a circle. Where a painting used to hang on the wall, a nail was exposed. The hook was still there. The painting was gone. I had bought that painting at an art auction for $1,800. I took out a notebook and started writing. It wasn't about staying calm. It was because I needed to confirm everything, item by item. To confirm exactly how much of my home had been gutted. With every item I wrote down, my grip tightened. By the time I reached the third page, I stopped. The tip of the pen pierced the paper, leaving a hole. Fifty boxes. Seven days. She treated this like a construction project. 2. Early the next morning, my mother-in-law, Helen Miller, called. "Chloe, you're back? Are you tired? There are some ribs in the fridge, heat them up for yourself." Her tone was exactly the same as usual. As if nothing had happened. "Mom, the things in the house—" "Oh, I did some tidying up. Keeping some old things around just takes up space, so I gave some to David." Gave some. Fifty boxes is called "gave some." "What about the piano? Mia's piano." "David's son, Leo, wants to learn the piano too. Buying a new one is so expensive, and Mia is older now and doesn't play as much—" "She practices for two hours every day." "Kids, you know. She'll stop practicing in a couple of years anyway." I didn't say anything. She continued: "We're all family, don't be so calculating. David's financial situation isn't great. As the older brother and sister-in-law, it's only right that you help them out." Only right. I've heard those two words for twelve years. The first year we were married, my mother-in-law asked us to provide the down payment for my brother-in-law's house. "David's financial situation isn't great. It's only right that you help him out." Twenty thousand dollars. I didn't say a word and gave it. The third year, my brother-in-law got married. My mother-in-law said the wedding funds weren't enough and asked us to pitch in fifteen thousand dollars. "We're all family, after all." I gave it. The fifth year, my brother-in-law's son was born. My mother-in-law stayed at his house to help with postpartum care for three months. When I gave birth to Mia, she came for a week, complained her back hurt, and left. The day my postpartum period ended, I got out of bed and heated up oatmeal for myself. The eighth year, Christmas. The gift my mother-in-law gave Leo was an iPad worth five hundred dollars. The gift she gave Mia was a twenty-dollar gift card. In front of the whole family. Mia looked at the gift card and didn't say anything. On the way home, she asked me, "Mom, does Grandma not like me?" I said, "No, sweetie. It's the thought that counts." She said "Oh" and didn't ask again. That night lying in bed, I told Mark about it. He said, "Mom probably just made a mistake, don't overthink it." I didn't overthink it. The tenth year, I bought my mother-in-law a gold necklace for almost five hundred dollars. She accepted it and smiled very happily. "My eldest daughter-in-law is the most filial." During Christmas, I saw that necklace around my sister-in-law Linda's neck. I stared at that necklace for three seconds. Linda smiled and said, "Mom gave it to me, pretty isn't it?" I said it was pretty. After returning home, I washed the dishes. I washed the dishes for four people. Then I washed the pots. Then I wiped the stove. Then I bagged the trash and took it to the door. Then I returned to the kitchen and dried my hands. There was a streak of dish soap foam on the back of my hand that I hadn't wiped off. I stared at that streak of foam for a while. It's fine. It's not a big deal. Just a necklace. I turned on the faucet and rinsed the foam away. 3. I started looking into those fifty shipping orders. Not looking into the quantity—I already knew the quantity was fifty. I was looking into the weight. Every order on the shipping record had a weight. First order: 70 lbs. Shipping time: Monday morning, 9:17 AM. Second order: 61 lbs. Shipping time: Monday morning, 10:42 AM. Third order: 99 lbs. Note: Fragile items, reinforce packaging. This order was the porcelain. Fourth order: 112 lbs. Note: Oversized item. Fifth to eighth orders: Each order was over 65 lbs. On Monday alone, eight boxes, total weight: 632 lbs. A sixty-three-year-old woman moved 632 pounds of stuff in one day. She couldn't have moved it alone. I checked the sender's information. The sender was not Helen. It was David Miller. My brother-in-law came to move it himself. I scrolled down. Tuesday's sender was also David. Wednesday—Linda. Thursday—David. Friday—Linda. Saturday—David. Sunday—David. The couple took turns coming. Coming to my house. Using my things to pack. Using packing materials bought with my money—yes, my storage room had leftover cardboard boxes and bubble wrap from my online shopping. And then shipping my things to their house. One week. Fifty boxes. A family of three—the mother-in-law directing, the brother-in-law hauling, the sister-in-law packing. Clear division of labor, extremely high efficiency. In my daughter's room, the spot where the piano used to be was empty. I walked in. Four deep, perfectly square indentations on the floor. I stood next to the indentations for a while. What would Mia think when she came home from school and saw the piano was gone? The first thing she does every day after school is play the piano. She drops her backpack, sits on the bench, plays scales first, then the piece her teacher assigned. Lately, she's been practicing Mozart's K. 545. She practiced for two months and just got the first movement smooth. Just yesterday, she sent me a voice message saying, "Mom, I played exceptionally well today, my teacher praised me." Now the piano is gone. I squatted down and covered one indentation with my palm. The indentation was larger than my palm. So deep that I couldn't even scratch it smooth with my fingernail. That was pressed down by eight years of weight. Mia started learning the piano at three, now she's eleven. Eight years. I stood up. I walked to the living room and opened my purchase history. This Yamaha grand piano, $55,000. Bought in 2017. Swiped on my card. I took a screenshot. Then I checked what my mother-in-law had bought for me. I thought about it for a long time. A pair of winter slippers. Last winter. "These slippers are too big for me, you can have them." In twelve years, the only thing she gave me that I could remember was a pair of winter slippers that didn't fit her. I bought her a gold necklace, she turned around and gave it to Linda. I bought her a cashmere sweater, the next time I visited she had put it on my brother-in-law. I transferred three hundred dollars to her every month for living expenses, she said "That's enough, that's enough," but I saw she signed Leo up for three extracurricular classes. Mia only took one. Because "the eldest daughter-in-law's family is well-off, they don't lack this little bit of money." I opened the memo app on my phone and started making a list. It wasn't an impulse. It was because with every item I wrote down, it became clearer to me— In this family, there was never a "we're all family." There was only "mine" and "the Millers'." And I wasn't considered a Miller. 4. On the third day, I went to the HOA office. To check the security footage. The HOA employee, Jake, knew me. "Ms. Chloe, what are you looking for?" "The security footage at the entrance of my building from Monday to Sunday of last week." Jake pulled it up. The footage was very clear. Monday morning, 8:50 AM, a white cargo van stopped at the entrance of the building. David got out of the van. Linda got out of the passenger side. My mother-in-law was waiting at the entrance and buzzed them in. 8:55 AM, the three of them went upstairs. 9:03 AM, David came out carrying the first box. 9:07 AM, Linda came out carrying the second. 9:11 AM, David came out hauling the third. One trip every four minutes. They were like professional movers, going back and forth. At noon, they stopped for an hour. Continued at 1:00 PM. Kept moving until 5:00 PM. Eight boxes, moved from morning till night. I watched all seven days of footage. Every day was exactly like this. The cargo van, the same one. David and Linda, the same couple. My mother-in-law directing upstairs, occasionally coming down to bring them water. Seven days. They didn't rest for a single day. Like they were rushing to meet a deadline. I had Jake copy the footage onto a flash drive for me. Back home, I sat on the sofa in the living room. The sofa was still there. Probably because it was too heavy to move. I opened my laptop and continued recording. I had written three pages before; now I started doing something else—pricing every single item. The clay teapots on the display shelf, twelve of them. The most expensive one was made by a master's apprentice, $3,800. The cheapest one was $180. I checked the purchase history for each one. Twelve teapots, total price: $12,600. Six tea sets. Two of them were Jian ware, $2,200 a set. The other four sets totaled over $1,500. Total price: $6,300. A pair of blue-and-white porcelain vases. Bought at an art auction, $4,600 for the pair. The books in the home office. Over two thousand of them. It's hard to calculate a unit price for these, but I remember when we moved in, the moving company charged by weight, and the books alone cost $260 in moving fees. A conservative estimate: over two thousand books, average price $12, that's $24,000. The bags in the walk-in closet. Three Chanels, two Hermès, one vintage leather handbag. I have the purchase history for the Chanels. A Classic Flap, $8,500. A 2.55 Reissue, $6,800. A Gabrielle hobo, $4,700. Hermès: A Birkin, $17,500. A Kelly, $14,200. That vintage leather handbag my mom left me— I paused. That bag was given to me by my mom before she passed away. She said it was the first genuine leather bag she bought when she was young by saving every penny. It actually wasn't worth much; the leather was old, and the zipper was a bit stiff. But it was my mom's. I kept it in the deepest cubby of the walk-in closet. It was also taken. I continued calculating. I couldn't stop. If I stopped, I wouldn't want to calculate anymore. AC unit, a 3-ton floor-standing unit, $1,100. Speakers, JBL floor-standing speakers, $2,200. Painting, from an art auction, $1,800. Floor lamp, Italian brand, $900. Twelve pots of orchids, including three premium orchids, one of which was over $800. Piano, $55,000. Mink coat, $6,000. Items in the jewelry box—I made a list: gold, jade, diamond pendants. Totaling over $16,000. This is only the documented part of these fifty boxes. There were also many small items: tableware, cups, ornaments, blankets, towels, kitchen supplies—I couldn't look up the purchase history for these one by one. But just the part with verifiable receipts already exceeded $175,000. And I had a premonition— These fifty boxes weren't everything. My mother-in-law had lived in my house for twelve years; there was no way to track how many little things she had taken. But the fifty boxes were out in the open. $175,000 was the minimum figure. And this didn't even include the home renovations.
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