A Deal Not Done
My 88 year old father
sounded very far away and lonely on the phone. “I wish I could be out of here
by Christmas. I want to be somewhere there’s people. I’m so lonely and bored
here”. He’s been living in a
half-empty house for a year since my mother died, being cared for by a nice
girl who comes in for a few hours a day and cooks and cleans.
His house has been
listed for several months (he tried to sell it himself to save the commission,
initially), but it wasn’t moving. He is a difficult client. He won’t negotiate
his price, and he makes ad hominem judgments about the kind of people who are
looking at his house.
After much pushing and
pulling, and pleading from his children, he had finally gotten and accepted an
offer, at his price, from his kind of buyer. We were overjoyed, and immensely
relieved. It was a short close, he’d have to be out in late October, and we’d
have him back in Niagara in his nice white tablecloth retirement residence
(where he already had an apartment on reserve).
There, he would be
within a few minutes, or an hour at least, of most of his children, and we
could see him every week as long as he lasted (which, despite his general
feebleness. Is likely to quite a while).
All sorts of plans were
made, and unmade. Youngest sister insisted on youngest brother bringing Dad
back by car in a long sentimental road trip. Youngest brother would have none
of it, and I’d rather poke hot wires in my eyeballs. So, youngest sister
volunteered for a road trip everybody else thought unnecessary. Apparently Dad
wanted to bring his clapped out car, rather than sell it and buy a new one, or
pay a high school student to deliver it. Depression-era mentality in spades.
Dad was galvanized. He
started phoning the brothers and sisters out west at improbable hours to tell
them he was packing boxes, throwing away junk, organizing his music. Youngest
sister, a dynamo and a whirlwind when started, was going down closing weekend
to clean out the house and drive him back.
It was all too easy and
exciting and difficult. The buyer had the inspector come in (Dad had bought the
house cash, so had never been required to do an inspection; my naïve parents)
and they found a bad roof on the sunroom, and the dreaded “M” word - MOLD in
the basement. The deal fell through.
Dad was secretly
relieved. The October close was pressing on him, and was probably impossible
anyway. Youngest sister is still going down to see him at the end of the month
to help him pack, clean up and throw away, but she won’t be driving him back.
So there he was at the
end of the telephone, bemoaning his loneliness and his boredom, and telling me
how much he wanted to move into his little apartment in Serenity Towers with its
view of the seaway and watch cargo ships.
“Well dad, if you
started planning now, put the house in your agent’s hands, we could probably
have you here for Christmas. Your daughter-in-law and I would really like to
have you for Christmas dinner”. He snapped immediately “I’m not leaving until I
sell the house!”.
It’s going to be a long
winter.
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