Tiffany tried the handle one last time as if the door might eventually give up, but the lock stayed blue and silent against her efforts. She looked at the camera and told me that if I did not let them in, I should never ask the family for any help ever again.
I ended the livestream and sat in my car in the Walmart parking lot while the rain started to tap against the glass of the windshield. I watched the other shoppers and felt the strange embarrassment of a grown man who had just been shaken by a family argument.
I thought about driving home to confront them, but I knew that distance was my greatest ally in maintaining my newfound sense of resolve. My family knew how to work my emotions in person, but the camera and the app had flattened the situation into a simple matter of a locked door.
By the time I drove home using the back streets, I realized that the lock had bought me enough time to start thinking like an engineer instead of a son. Systems always fail when the access controls are vague and when everyone assumes that they are authorized to enter without a log.