She looked at me and said, “Your dad left you that house because he loved you. He didn’t leave it so your brother could use it as a clubhouse while you paid the bills from somewhere else. You’re honoring what your dad actually wanted, which is for you to be taken care of, too.”
I don’t know what I did to deserve her, but I’m not asking questions.
Now, it was time to see what Travis would do when the safety net was officially gone.
Connor called it almost to the word.
3 days before the response deadline, my phone rang at 9:45 on a Monday night.
Travis.
I picked up this time because I knew it was coming and I wanted to hear it in real time.
“Ryan, we need to talk.”
His voice sounded different.
Smaller.
Like someone had let about 60% of the air out of the Travis balloon.
“Can you come to the house?”
“I’ll meet you somewhere public,” I said. “There’s a diner on Broad Street, the one with the blue awning. I’ll be there tomorrow at noon.”
“Come on, man. Just come to the house. We can talk here.”
“Diner. Noon tomorrow.”
He sighed like I’d asked him to climb a mountain, but he said okay.
I got there 10 minutes early, ordered a coffee, sat in a booth by the window, and waited.
Travis walked in at 12:15 because, of course, he was late, even to the conversation that was supposed to save his living situation.
He slid into the booth across from me, looking like he hadn’t slept well in a while.
His hair was longer than usual.
He had a patchy beard going, and his shirt had a stain on the collar that he either didn’t notice or didn’t care about.
This was not the Travis who walked into rooms and owned them.
This was a guy who was starting to realize that the room had been walking itself the whole time.
“So,” he said.
“So,” I said.
He fidgeted with a sugar packet for about 10 seconds before launching into it.
“Look, I know things got weird, okay? I know the airport thing was messed up, but you can’t sell Dad’s house. You just can’t. That’s our home. That’s where we grew up. Dad would be rolling over in his grave if he knew you were doing this.”
I let him finish.
Then I took a sip of my coffee and said, “Travis, why did you forget to pick me up?”
“What? At the airport?”
“I’m genuinely asking. 5 hours. You wrote it on a sticky note. I texted you that morning. You said, ‘Bet.’ And then you just forgot. I want to understand how that’s possible.”
He looked at the table.
“I don’t know, man. Britney’s friend was having this thing, and we went over there, and it just slipped my mind. It wasn’t on purpose.”
“I know it wasn’t on purpose. That’s the problem. It wasn’t on purpose because I’m not important enough to be on purpose. I’m not even important enough to be an afterthought. I’m just not on the list at all.”
“That’s not true.”
“Travis, when I moved out, it took you 10 days to notice. 10 days. And the first thing you said wasn’t, ‘Where are you?’ or ‘Are you okay?’ It was, ‘Did you pay the electric bill?’ Does that sound like someone who matters to you?”
He didn’t answer.
He just sat there turning that sugar packet over and over in his fingers.
“Do you know how much money I spent keeping that house running?” I continued. “$38,000 more than my half over 2 years. I mowed the lawn. I fixed the dishwasher. I unclogged the gutters. I paid the bills you forgot. I cooked dinner so you and Britney could eat. And in return, you left me at an airport. Didn’t notice I was gone for a week and a half. And then told everyone I was being dramatic about some airport thing. That’s what I was to you. A maintenance crew that sometimes sat on your couch.”
Travis’s jaw tightened.
I could see him fighting between wanting to argue and knowing he couldn’t because everything I said was true, and we both knew it.
“So, what do you want?” he asked quietly.
“I want to be done. The partition action is moving forward. The house gets appraised. It goes on the market. We split the proceeds 50/50, and we go our separate ways. Or you buy me out at fair market value. Those are the options.”
“I don’t have $130,000, Ryan.”
“I know you don’t. So, the house gets sold no matter what, unless you can get a mortgage. You’ve been living there for 2 years. Some lenders will work with that.”
He laughed bitterly.
“My credit’s shot. I couldn’t get a credit card right now, let alone a mortgage.”
“Then the house gets sold.”
He leaned back in the booth and stared at the ceiling.
I could see it on his face.
The moment where the full weight of it landed.
This wasn’t a negotiation.
This wasn’t me bluffing to make a point.
This was actually happening, and there was no one left to bail him out.
No younger brother to cover the bill.
No safety net.
Just consequences arriving right on schedule.
“Dad would be so disappointed in you,” he said.
It came out weak, like he knew it was the wrong thing to say even as he was saying it.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I think Dad would be more disappointed in the son who couldn’t be bothered to water his tomato plants while his brother was out of town. They died, by the way. All of them. Two years I kept those going. And you couldn’t manage two weeks with a garden hose.”
Travis looked like I’d slapped him.
The tomatoes.