For five years, Elric and Fallon had given up their guest bedroom, turning it into a storage room for her parents’ belongings. But once the couple discovered that they were pregnant, they asked the older couple to remove their things, causing unnecessary friction and a surprise reward. Five years ago, my in-laws just wanted a smaller house.

So, they started looking for a little place just for the two of them. “We have too much space and too many things,” my father-in-law, Bramwell, said. So, they asked if they could store some of their stuff in our house for a while.

“It’s just the things we want to keep, darling,” Bramwell told my wife, Fallon. We both didn’t mind, and we had a guest room we didn’t use. “Sure, Dad,” my wife said.

“The guest room is all yours for now.”

The key word here is for now. But guess what? They never took their stuff back.

Instead, they just kept bringing more. For a while, Fallon and I used to joke about the guest room and how it had turned into a storage room in our own home. The bed had been pushed to the corner, and the room was stuffed full with boxes and old furniture.

“Where should we put the vacuum?” Fallon asked me one day as we bought a new vacuum cleaner. “Throw it in the storage room,” I replied, making my wife laugh out loud. But then, we discovered something a little unexpected.

“I’m pregnant, Elric!” Fallon said, running into our bedroom with a pregnancy test. We had both thought about having kids for a long time, but we still wanted to do so much and travel more. So, this was an unexpected little blessing.

Together, Fallon and I sat and talked about everything from baby names to nursery colors when it hit us. “The storage room has to go,” my wife said, sitting up in bed. “We need that room for the baby.

We have to tell them, Elric. I won’t have us changing our lives just because my parents keep too much stuff.”

“Okay, I agree,” I said calmly. Fallon was already getting upset.

“We’re meeting them on Sunday for brunch. We can tell them about the baby and their things then,” I said. My wife nodded, smiled, and settled back down.

“I just need us to come first here,” she said. The next morning, Fallon sat with her laptop and planned the nursery from start to finish. “I know it’s too early, Elric,” she said shyly as she sipped her tea.

“But I’m excited, and I need to do something with all this excitement.”

Then came the Sunday brunch. I wasn’t exactly sure how Fallon’s parents would take the news because they seemed happy leaving their things at our home. “We’re having a baby!” Fallon announced when we sat down at the coffee shop.

My in-laws jumped up and started hugging and kissing us to say congratulations. Eventually, when their excitement calmed down a bit, I decided it was time to bring it up. “Mom, Dad,” I began, calling them what they always wanted me to.

“We need you to move your stuff out of the guest room as soon as possible because we plan on turning it into a nursery for the baby.”

“Oh, sure,” my mother-in-law, Thaliah, replied with a quick wave of her hand. “We’ll get to it soon.”

After that, she started looking at the menu, and the talk about their belongings was forgotten. Weeks passed, and “soon” seemed to mean never in their minds.