Thanks For Bringing Us Together, Random Stranger!

My mother wasn’t married to my stepfather of twenty-plus years. He maintained an apartment by his workplace, a couple of hours away, and only saw her on weekends and holidays.

When she passed away suddenly and I was sorting her apartment, my stepfather and I did our best, but we had a few conflicts about what belonged to whom and so forth. He still visited on weekends to help out. This was decades ago, hence the old-fashioned tech.

We both returned after being out separately.

Stepfather: “Hey, did you take the twenty that was by my bed?”

Me: “No.”

Stepfather: “I don’t mind if you did. Just tell me, all right?”

Me: “I didn’t even know it was there.”

Stepfather: “Okay. Did you put my pillowcases in when you did laundry? They’re not on the bed.”

Me: *Confused* “No…”

Stepfather: “And, look, I’m not going to stop you from taking your mother’s things, but come on. Did you have to take both VCRs?”

I definitely wouldn’t have packed things I used while I staying there, let alone touched his stuff. None of it made sense. Until it did.

Me: “I didn’t… Oh! We were robbed!”

And yeah, we were. It seems that’s all they took: money and tech and pillowcases to carry it in. It was totally worth losing some stuff to ease tensions until we got the apartment cleared out.