Selling The House – Chapter 3
We continue our flashback series from Spring 2008, when we were selling our house.
A woman called and wanted to see the house. She happened to be just round the corner, visiting a friend of hers, a neighbor we met from time to time and whose property I had once trespassed upon the previous winter, driving a deep gash through their pristine snow. Yes, the house was still available. Yes, she could see it. No, tomorrow, not today.
In fact, the house was ready to receive visitors that day, but we were not. It was already the end of the day and there was nowhere for Dawn to take the children, even if we were inclined. She did not express any displeasure at the inconvenience, and said tomorrow would be fine, though she might drive by and look at the outside.
Her voice had a dreamy quality – rather more spiritual than hallucinogenic - but practical and down to earth. With a judicious use of pauses and inflection, she conveyed a broad range of feeling within a minimal register. As I soon learned, taking her on the now familiar tour of the premises, she was a school librarian and so was not easily flustered. Nothing phased her, not even my disclosure of the wet basement. She simply nodded her head, her thin arms crossed as she considered the foundation with a look that betray nothing - not understanding, not ignorance, not even interest. Like previous visitors, the rooms and windows delighted her, as did the location, and she soon came back for additional visits with her college-aged daughters and the requisite “friend who knew something about house construction.”
She liked the neighborhood, loved the house, agreed the price was reasonable, and despite not truly understanding the process of buying a For Sale By Owner home, she agreed to make an offer. We set a date to draft a purchase and sales agreement and get the process started. That night, Dawn and I ordered out for dinner.
The following afternoon I waited in the kitchen. The day was sticky and unreasonably hot for early June, and like many New England homes, we had no air conditioning. I was telepathically chivvying Samuel into his bathing suit and out the door with Rose and Dawn. They were going to cool off in the pool and leave me to negotiate the sales and purchase agreement in peace. A weak puff of air moved through the window screens, and I felt an impossible shiver as the sweat on the back of my neck cooled a degree. Dawn was gathering towels and goggles and sunscreen into a large, blue, net bag, and while she rummaged in the drawers, I said, “You know, I really shouldn’t complain. My family in Atlanta has been dealing with this heat and humidity for three months already.”
Dawn glanced in my direction with a sardonic expression. “Your family is suffering terribly in their air-conditioned fortresses.”
“Yes, poor devils.”
To be fair it had only been two days of unseasonable misery. A high pressure system lay over New England like a magnifying glass whose focal point rested twenty feet over our roof. Nighttime brought some relief, but not enough to sleep comfortably. One expected this in July, a week or two of sweat-soaked sheets, thin blankets tossed early to the floor, cranky children refusing to drink enough water, and several trips to the city pool and maple creemies. The human creature can withstand any amount of discomfort if it can be accepted in the natural order of things, a compromise or sacrifice for a perceived purpose. In our case, a week of misery in July is a small price to pay for living in New England, a price we could choose to pay in electric bills if we wanted to install an air conditioner. But four months of this was not part of the bargain.
Dawn and the children vanished to the pool before the buyer arrived. I offered her ice water which she gratefully sipped and held to her tanned, stretched skin, glistening with perspiration. We chatted for a bit, quickly digging down, as Americans will do, to an acceptable level of personal intrusion. I gave her the short account of our reasons for moving and life as an older parent of young children, while she summarized a divorce, an impending surgery, and an ill family member. We sipped our ice water and watch the sky darken with what promised to become a cooling thunderstorm. The wind rose outside and squeezed through the open windows to rustle the blank contract on the table. On cue, we picked it up and began the process of working our way through the legal language and filling in the blanks.
She asked questions about everything, and though she seemed to understand only fragments of the process, she listened attentively and without anxiety as I did my best to explain and decipher security deposits, inspection clauses, and financial pre-qualification. When she asked questions, they were pertinent, and I found her absolute calm unnerving.
A familiar sound outside brought my glance up from the contract. Out the front windows, I saw Dawn returning in the minivan, parking on the street rather than the garage. She must have forgotten something important at home, perhaps Rose’s epipen, and I imagined she would run in and out with no more than a hushed “don’t mind me” – guaranteed to make us do so – as she passed. But it was the children who came running in, flushed, excited. Rose was chattering. Samuel was in tears.
“There’s a tornado watch!” Rose said, loudly enough to heard across the length of the house, though she was only twelve inches from my ear. Samuel’s screams were louder yet, and as he clung to my leg, it took some time for me to understand his words.
“Papa. I’m scared of the tornado!”
Dawn was nowhere to be seen. She was not visible outside. She had not come in with the children, and they had no idea where she was. I comforted Samuel in my lap, shrugging and passing apologetic glances to our buyer, who did not seem in the least put out but stared vacantly into space. Rose chattered by the window. Eventually Samuel calmed down in my lap, and Rose started to read a book, so we continued to work down the contract. Dawn finally returned and stayed long enough to say, “Sorry! They said there’s a tornado warning …” but at this word, Samuel began to scream again – Papa I’m scared of the tornado! – and I almost missed the rest of Dawn’s words. “… so I wanted to come home and find out if the pool was even open, but when I got out of the car there was a woman at the end of the street in a wheelchair yelling ‘Call 911.’ So I did, and I’m waiting for the ambulance. Oh, there it comes now!”
Samuel jumped down from my lap, and Rose and he both jumped up on the couch to peer out the window. When I turned back, Dawn was gone. “Papa, there’s an ambulance!” said my son, master of the obvious, all trace of panic gone at the sight of the flashing lights.
In time Dawn returned and took the children into the farthest back bedroom and closed the door. The buyer gave me an indulgent smile, and we laughed over the foibles of children. We finished up the contract, and I asked her to review it for errors before we took copies to our respective lawyers, hers as yet hypothetical.
“It looks good except for one part,” she said with a practiced, off-hand air, and a hesitancy in her voice. Her indifference on contractual points was now over, and she was about to drop the bomb over the only point she had ever cared about.
“Yes?” I asked, as obsequiously as I could manage.
“The selling price.”
“Let’s see,” I replied, taking the document from her hand. “Here it is, at the top.”
“Yes, I know, but we never spoke about price.”
“But you said you thought the selling price was reasonable.”
“Reasonable, yes, but I never said that that was what I was offering.”
“Oh,” I replied. And then, again, “Oh.” I was alarmed and angry and at the same time unwilling to admit either. “Well, what exactly are you offering?”
She smiled. I hadn’t said no. It was the smile of a high diver who, having leaped into oblivion, has left her anxieties behind on the board and is enjoying the thrill of reckless abandonment, and she continued to smile as she offered me her price.
Leave a Reply