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Hearing my dad somewhere inside, I moved forward into the house my parents had brought me home to when I was born. Everything had stayed the same in all those years. The front door was still an arresting shade of peacock blue my mother loved, though the creases had started chipping well into my senior year of high school. The lace curtains in the kitchen got a yearly washing and remained bright white with some concoction my dad continued to use well after mom had passed. It was a comfort and a testament to my dad’s refusal to do much of anything different since Mom died. I could always count on him to be my constant.
“In the den, Taylor Jane.”
Closing the front door with a gentle click behind me, I smiled. To this day, only my parents and Hunter ever used my full first name and nothing else. To anyone else, I was a myriad of Taylor, TJ, Tay-Tay, T-Rex, and whatever else my close friends came up with. I was sure my posse found names bordering on unacceptable to irritate poor Hunter relentlessly.
Walking down the hallway into the den that faced the backyard, Dad was standing on a ladder, trying to rehang a painting my grandmother had given us ages ago. It was some postmodern thing she pawned off on us and neither Dad nor myself had the heart to tell her we didn’t like it. If Dad had pulled it from the attic it meant she was visiting in the near future. I rushed over to keep the ladder from wobbling.
“What are you doing, Dad?”
He made me nervous when one knee buckled and he used one hand to grab the ladder. I needed to call Hunter and ask him to help Dad with this. Since I came home things felt off in the house, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. There was a need to watch him even when he was intent on pushing me out the door to pursue my dreams.
“What does it look like?” He smiled, and I shook my head.
“Gram is visiting soon?” Holding the ladder and not arguing was easier since he was already standing halfway up in the air.
He waved me away from the ladder. “You know it, Taylor Jane. I didn’t want to forget and have her mention it.”
Alan Bryant was a stubborn man, but I loved him deeply. He bravely took on both roles as father and mother when I needed him most. Dad had a major heart attack last year and it was the only reason I came home for Christmas as opposed to him com
ing to the city to see me. After his job urged him to take an early retirement, I began to realize how hard it had been on him staying home alone in this house. The rooms echoed too much without my mother’s presence to fill it with her warmth. I swore the wallpaper in the kitchen held her voice and the tea kettle Dad insisted on using chirped shrilly in her tone. Pangs of guilt hit me because once I went away to college I seldom came back home. My own pain still echoed in my bruised heart for the woman I desperately missed.
Four years was a long time. People changed, bad haircuts grew out, and memories of what could have been faded to soreness instead of a raw burn. Sure, I loved this place, but there was something missing for me to make the leap and stay here.
“You know there are several people you could ask to help you with this. Me included.” I leaned against the wall, watching him. He set the crooked painting on the bracket, and I made a note to see if Hunter could stop by and fix it when Dad was out.
“I know, princess.” Dad got down from the ladder and gave me a kiss on the head and left me standing in our great room while he tinkered in the kitchen next. I needed to find him a hobby or everything in the house was liable to look crooked from now on. I’d introduced him to a woman, but that ended disastrously and I learned my lesson that time. Dad was up for dating about as much as I was.
Non-existent.
“Did you eat lunch, Dad?” I called out to him, moving over to the pile of mail on his big desk, sorting magazines and bills in size order.
From the kitchen he yelled back, “Not yet. I was thinking we could go to the Greek place on Main Street. I know you like their vegetarian gyros.”
“Sounds good.” Talking to myself, I kept organizing the papers until one of the envelopes got caught. I pulled it free, noticing that it was already opened and unfolded. Turning it over, I saw a letter from the bank we used address to my dad. My voice faltered calling out to him and I looked over my shoulder and heard him still in the kitchen tinkering. Slowly I pulled out the thin folded letter, opening up the notice. My eyes skimmed the words, only catching the most important ones. I fell back against the desk, clutching the letter to my chest shaking. This was huge and Dad had kept this from me when we never had secrets before.
The bank was sending notice to foreclose on my parents’ house. My home. Dad had used up the equity in it, I was guessing, but it must have been to pay for my education and living expenses in New York City. I thought that money had come from my mother’s life insurance settlement. This was a lot of money according to the bank letter. Money I didn’t think about because Dad constantly told me not to worry about those things. He said he was fine. He promised me. Now I wondered, a sick pit in my stomach, if this was why the bank was only too eager to give me a mortgage for the project on my house with my paltry down payment. Obviously I misjudged a few things, my father telling me the truth being one of them.
“Princess?”
I blamed myself for being selfish. I hadn’t been looking in on my dad the way I should have been. He kept throwing money my way, and I took it, living my dream unaware that I had slowly been taking his away.
“Dad?” I held out the letter as he came into the den.
He took it from me and visibly shook reading it and rubbing a hand over his jaw. He crumpled the stiff stationary in his fist.
“It’s nothing for you to worry about, Taylor Jane.” He put the letter, a wrinkled ball, on the desk and turned away.
“Dad, the bank is going to take the house and the money you gave me as a down payment for the flip has already been spent. What’s going on?”
“I don’t want to talk about it, Taylor Jane.”
“Dad, we have to talk about this. I can try and get the money back, see if the seller will cancel the contract on the house.” My heart thudded in my chest, scared and frustrated that this was the first time I was hearing about any of this. I’d lose a substantial amount on the closing costs, but Dad was more important and I’d find a way to fix this. How could I flip that house and support us when the money was already spent? To use Hunter’s terminology, what a clusterfuck...
“No. I don’t want you to.” Thick eyebrows furrowed and his face reddened. It wasn’t often Dad and I had disagreements, but this was ridiculous. We would lose the house.
I pressed further. “Dad.”
“Enough.” His stern voice became uncharacteristically shaky and I pulled back, wounded and unsure.
