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“It was dementia, right?”
“That or early onset Alzheimer’s. Same result either way.”
“Shitty way to go,” Jack muttered. “Even for a shitty woman.”
I shrugged. “Shitty for me and Brandi. Our mother left her business a mess, and pretty much burned her house down with negligence. At least, that’s what I’m assuming. She messed with the fuse box a lot when we were girls. Always trying to get more power to her tools. It looked like it was ready to go up in flames when I came into town last week. I should’ve known it was dangerous.”
Jack was quiet for a few moments. “You know I’m a firefighter, right? And you’re admitting that your mom probably caused the fire. I’m required to report that information.”
I groaned. “Great. Like my problems couldn’t get any worse.”
“Relax,” he said. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear anything. But be careful who you talk to about that. If the cause of the fire is determined to be negligence…”
“This is actually the perfect time to be reminded of that,” I said. “I’m meeting with the home insurance agent tomorrow to go over the policy. I’ll watch my words. Thanks for the reminder.”
“Any time.”
“It’s bad enough our mother’s business is a mess. If we lost out on the home insurance, we wouldn’t get anything.”
Smoke came running up to us, panting happily. Jack threw the Frisbee again, and Smoke took off at a sprint with four other dogs right on his tail.
“You said she owned the building her shop was in,” Jack commented. “Have you considered renting it out? Collecting passive income?”
“Not really. I wouldn’t want to be a landlord, especially when I’m back in New York. If something breaks, I’ll need to fix it for the renter.”
“There are management companies that will take care of that.”
“For a fee,” I replied. “I haven’t run the numbers, but it would probably be easier to sell the building. Get a clean break.”
“You’re probably right,” Jack admitted. “But if you change your mind, I could take care of it.”
“For a fee?”
He shrugged. “I like fixing stuff. I’d do it for free. If it’s worth continuing after a year, then we could talk about a fee. But I’d charge way less than a management company.”
The offer was immediately tempting. If I was earning a monthly income from the building, that would allow me to rent a bigger place in New York. And if I ever changed my mind, I could still sell the building. If Jack was handling the management, there was really no risk.
But then I became suspicious. “Why are you offering to do this? What would you get out of it?”
“Probably nothing.”
“You’re doing this out of guilt, aren’t you?”
Jack whirled toward me. “Guilt about what?”
“For treating me like shit growing up.”
“Hah!” he scoffed. “I treated you like shit?”
“Yes.”
“You treated me like shit!” he insisted, his blue eyes blazing like fire. “You spread a rumor that I hid a camera in the girls bathroom.”
“Because you stole my notebook and told everyone I was in love with the Jonas Brothers,” I replied.
“Which I only did because you made fun of my braces!”
“Because you were always poking me in class, then lying about it to the teacher.”
