I still don't know what I have done wrong

On Tuesday I paid the junk removal company $225 for hauling away 1/3 of a dumpster worth of stuff from my mother's supposedly empty house. I also looked through the before/after photos they provided and saw what they took away -- four bedrooms' worth of window coverings, a table lamp, a bedframe, three American flags, window screens, furnace filters, lots of debris that looked slats of wood … and, most gallingly, a kiddie pool that was stuffed into my mother's living room coat closet.

My kid sister's husband and two of his friends from work supposedly emptied out the house in January. We -- "the estate" -- paid them $625 for a job they simply didn't complete. That's why the kiddie pool bugs me: someone shoved it into the front closet.

Two weeks ago, when I let my sister know that the mortgage company wanted these last items removed and then they would give us the deed in lieu of foreclosure we need to be released from all liability for my mother's home. I thought this was good news.

She was furious! She remains furious. I think it's because she and her husband knew the job wasn't finished and she's defensive. But I have never, not once, blamed them. I have always presented this as positive because that's how I feel.

I cannot charge "the estate" for finishing the job -- thereby splitting the cost three ways -- because then my older sister would bitch about being billed twice for the same thing. She would have a point, of course, but then I would be in EVEN MORE TROUBLE, and I hate putting my sensitive young nephew in the middle of this family squabble.

And oh yes, he is. Today is Wednesday. Easter is Sunday. I'm clearly not invited to spend the day with them.  So I'll send him his basket. This is his first Easter without Grandma and, even though he is 13, this will be a melancholy day for him and I want him to feel loved.

I, however, will just continue popping Xanax until this week is over. Sunday I will celebrate Easter and Monday I live for vacation.