The total was significant. Significant enough that when my brother’s attorney received the figure, the response that came back was the word bankruptcy.
I sat with it for a day. Then I called Francis.
“Tell them we’ll see them in court,” I said.
There was a brief pause.
Then Francis said, “I was going to suggest the same thing. For what it’s worth, I think the bankruptcy threat is a bluff. His attorney has seen our evidence. He knows they won’t win.”
She was right.
Within a week, the unfortunate mediator called again. His client, he said, was prepared to pay the full amount, but would require an installment arrangement. He said it in the tone of someone who expects to negotiate the number down.
He was going to be disappointed.
I agreed to installment payments on two conditions. My mother would cosign as guarantor since she was the one who had handed over the key in the first place, and any single missed payment would accelerate the full remaining balance to due immediately. It would all be recorded as a notorized agreement.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line.
They accepted.
My mother did not speak to me when we signed. She sat across from me at the notary’s office with an expression I had seen before. The look of someone who has concluded that the consequences they are experiencing belong to someone else.
She signed where she was asked to sign. She did not look at me as she gathered her coat and purse and left.
That was 8 months ago.
The house is itself again. The walls are sage green in the entryway and soft white in the main bedroom. And I found a sofa I like even better than the original, lower to the ground in a warm terracotta that I never would have chosen before London.
The built-in shelving has been replaced. The brass fixtures are back. There is a plant in the kitchen window.