Do you know how it feels to be trampled underfoot? I’m Diana, and I was treated like a maid in my own house for three months. My adult stepdaughter acted as though I was meant to serve her and threw rubbish all over my house. I made sure she understood that compassion and patience have their limits.

Over the course of ten years, my husband Tom and I created a lovely home on Redwood Lane where Sunday mornings meant pancakes and crossword puzzles and laughing filled the corridors.

Rick, my first-marriage son, was doing well at college. And Kayla, Tom’s 22-year-old daughter from his previous marriage, well, she lived on the edge of the earth.

I tried—I swear to God I tried. Heartfelt birthday greetings and invitations to girls’ nights that were not responded. And polite inquiries concerning her dreams, to which shrugs were replied.

Kayla wasn’t mean. She was more indifferent and worse. like though I were a cheap wallpaper that she had come to disregard.

However, my heart broke when she called Tom that soggy Tuesday night, her voice brimming with tears, and pleaded if she might return home “just for a little while.”

Tom responded, “Of course, sweetheart,” without even glancing at me to confirm. “Here, you’ll always be welcome.”

I grinned and squeezed his hand. I mean, what else could I do?

Three days later, Kayla showed up like a cyclone in designer boots, carrying a duffel that appeared to be big enough to fit a small family, three suitcases, and two tote bags.

She grabbed our guest room, which I had tastefully furnished with delicate blues and fresh flowers, and swept passed me with hardly a nod.

With thuds that rattled the picture frames, she dropped her luggage and declared, “This will work.”

“Honey, welcome home!” Hovering at the doorway, I said. “For supper, I prepared your favorite casserole.”

Looking up from her phone, she looked. “Oh, I’ve eaten already. However, thank you.”

For a week, her portion of the dish remained unopened in the refrigerator until I threw it out, my hands quivering with sadness.

In a few of days, the first indications emerged. Kayla left a bowl of cereal on the coffee table, with a layer of milk on it. After a depressing party, her cosmetic wipes were strewn all over the bathroom sink like confetti.

I ended up pursuing her, reclaiming the fragments of her life that she had irresponsibly left behind.

One morning, I held up an empty water bottle I had discovered stuck between the couch cushions and whispered softly, “Kayla, sweetie.” “Is it possible for you to recycle these?”

She shrugged, blinked slowly, and looked up from her phone. Yes. Whatever!

However, the bottles continued to show up on windowsills and beneath the couch. Like tumbleweeds in a deserted town, they rolled around the floor of the living room.

She’s just getting settled. When I mentioned it, Tom shrugged and said, “Give her some time, Di.”

The problem grew like bacteria in a petri dish as two weeks stretched into a month. Opened, emptied, and abandoned Amazon boxes were strewn about the foyer. Small colonies of neglect were created as dishes moved from the kitchen to every surface in the house.

I discovered a banana peel beneath the couch cushion one evening. An genuine banana peel that looks like it belongs in a cartoon—brown and sticky.

“Kayla,” I yelled. “Honey, could you come here for a moment?”

She came into the doorway looking so well put together that it broke my heart. “She looks a lot like her mom!” “As always,” Tom said.

“What’s going on?” Unmoving from the doorway, she asked.

I displayed the skin of a banana. “This was discovered beneath the couch.”

She gazed at it for a while before turning to face me. “All right?”

“All right? This is, Kayla. This isn’t typical.”

“Diana, it’s only a banana peel. Calm down.”

Only a banana peel. Yes, exactly. As though the weight of her negligence wasn’t gradually choking me.

I answered, “I’m not trying to be difficult.” “I simply need your assistance in keeping our house tidy.”

Her gasp sliced through me like a piece of glass. “All right. I’ll attempt to use more caution.”

However, nothing altered. It grew worse, if anything.

On a Sunday that began so promisingly, the breaking point was reached. After kissing my forehead and promising to bring back Chinese takeaway for dinner, Tom had departed for his weekly golf outing with his friends. I had thoroughly cleaned the living room in the morning.

When Tom and I were alone, I vacuumed, dusted, and restored the sparkle to everything.

Humming an old tune Rick used to enjoy, I went out into the backyard garden to pick a few cherry tomatoes. I felt like myself again for a brief while. After that, I returned to the living room and froze.

Like battle casualties, the takeout bags from the previous evening were spread out on the coffee table. The hardwood floor had rings from soda cans that were likely to get stained. The cream-colored carpeting I had been saving for months was covered in cheeto dust, which was bright orange and accusatory.

Kayla was standing there with her feet resting on my spotless coffee table. With the nonchalant indifference of someone who has never tidied up after herself in her life, she was browsing through her phone.

When I walked in, she smirked and looked up. “Hey, Diana! I’m quite hungry. Are you able to prepare some of those pancakes? You made those for my birthday last year, right?”

“Apologies?”

Pancakes! I really want something homemade, and yours is quite good.

The devastation of my morning’s effort, the casual brutality of her request, and the way she looked at me as if I were only there for her convenience made me look at her for a long time.

“You know what?” I answered. “I believe I have run out of pancake mix. Place a takeout order!”

I decided that night while I lay in bed next Tom’s soft snores. It’s okay if Kayla wants to treat me like a hired servant. She was about to discover, however, that even the help might give up.

The following morning, I got my experiment underway. Every dish she didn’t include remained in its proper location. I did not touch a single wrapper, empty container, or item of proof that she had ever been in our house.

The coffee table was a complete mess by Tuesday.

“Diana?” That night, Kayla called from the living room. “Have you neglected to tidy up in here?”

I popped my head around the corner and muttered, “Oh.” “Those dishes aren’t mine.”

She blinked. “However, you always tidy them up.”

“Do I?” I tilted my head as if I was truly perplexed as I asked. “I don’t recall consenting to that agreement.”

For the first time since moving here, Kayla was complaining as she loaded the dishes when Tom got home.

“What’s going on?” he whispered to me.

“Just promoting a little independence.”

He scowled without pressing.

I had advanced to phase two of my plan by Thursday. Every piece of trash I discovered that had Kayla’s fingerprints on it, including rotting fruit, dirty tissues, and empty chip bags, was sent to her room via special delivery.

After carefully writing her name in Sharpie handwriting, I placed it on her pillow and wrote a little note that said, “I thought you might want this back! XOXO, Diana.”

She rushed downstairs the first time she discovered a collection of her trash placed in her chamber like a twisted piece of art.

“What on earth is this?” She held up a rotting apple core and demanded.

“Oh, you own that! I didn’t want to discard anything that you might find significant.”

“Diana, it’s garbage!”

“Is it? What made you leave it beneath the couch, then?”

Like a fish struggling to breathe, she opened her mouth, shut it, then opened it again.

“This is crazy!”

“Well! I guess it is.”

The next Tuesday was the last straw. I got an idea after discovering a week’s worth of Kayla’s trash lying about the house, including candy wrappers, banana peels, and partially consumed sandwiches in varying states of deterioration.

There on the counter was her work lunchbox. Like she always did, she would quickly take it without looking and head out the door.

I took care when packing it. I put all of that week’s rubbish in a twisted bento box arrangement. A used makeup wipe folded neatly in the corner, the rotten apple core here, and the empty chip bag there.

My phone buzzed with texts at 12:30 p.m.

“Diana, what the hell?”

“You filled my lunch with trash!”

“Everyone at work believes I’m crazy!”

“What is the matter with you?”

I gently replied back, enjoying every word: “I thought you might be craving leftovers.” I hope today is fantastic for you! ❤️

The quiet that ensued was lovely.

Kayla didn’t rush to her room or slam the door when she got home that night. Instead, she spent a considerable amount of time standing in the foyer, surveying the house. Perhaps for the first time since she had moved in, she was truly looking.

It was just the two of us because Tom was working late.

“Diana?” she exclaimed.

Tom and I used to complete this crossword problem together on Sunday mornings, and I looked up from it.

“Yes?”

“I like how the living room looks.”

I looked around. Yes, it looked good. It was quiet and tidy, more like a house than a storage facility.

“Thank you!”

After giving a nod, she headed upstairs. She was moving, and I could hear the quiet sounds of someone putting things away rather than letting them fall wherever gravity led them.

The living room was immaculate when I woke up the following morning. She had put her plates in the dishwasher. By the stairs, her folded clothes were neatly stacked.

With a hesitation I had never seen in her before, Kayla emerged in the kitchen doorway.

She declared, “I cleaned up.”

“I observed. Thank you.”

She took an apple from the bowl on the counter, nodded, and made her way to the door.

“Kayla?” I called out to her.

She went around again.

“The pancakes—just politely ask if you truly want them at some point. All I ever needed was that.”

Her face changed in some way. A hope-inducing apology, but not quite.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll… I’ll keep that in mind.”

Two months have passed since the Great Lunchbox Incident of Redwood Lane, and although Kayla and I are unlikely to ever share intimate secrets or braid each other’s hair, we have discovered something better: kindness and respect.

She now takes care of herself. Says “thank you” and “please.” Despite her constant complaints about getting dirt under her nails, she even assisted me in planting flowers in the front garden.

Last Sunday, for the first time in months, we prepared pancakes together. When she stated they were good, she genuinely grinned after eating four of them.