“Forty-two thousand and some change.”
“Then that’s what it goes for.”
“And if somebody bids more?”
“It belongs to somebody else.”
That was Nate.
No fantasies.
No bidding war because we “deserved” it.
Forty-two thousand was every dollar we had.
Beyond that, the house belonged to someone with more money.
The sale was held on a Thursday morning in April at ten o’clock on the courthouse steps.
County sales had been held there longer than anyone could remember.
The auctioneer was a man named Dobbs, around sixty, in a tan windbreaker with a clipboard tucked under one arm. His voice carried across the square.
About twenty people showed up.
Most were interested in the empty lots.
A landlord from the next county stood near the front wearing a quilted vest. His hands stayed in his pockets.
His boots looked too clean to have ever crossed a muddy field.
I had taken a vacation day from the hospital.
Nate came straight from work with grease still on his forearms.
The terms were printed on a sheet.
Payment in full that day.
Certified funds.
No warranty.
County deed to be mailed once recorded.
In my purse was a cashier’s check for $40,000.
Beneath it was a bank envelope containing $2,000 in cash.
A great deal of that cash was tip money.
I had never managed to turn all of it into larger bills.
Dobbs read the parcel number.
“House and two and three-tenths acres, known locally as the Miller farm. Who’ll give me twenty thousand?”
The man in the quilted vest raised one finger.
“Twenty-five,” Nate said.
The bidding rose.
Thirty.
Thirty-five.
Thirty-eight.
At thirty-eight, the man in the vest stopped signaling with his finger and began saying the numbers aloud.
“Thirty-nine.”
“Forty,” Nate said.
“Forty-one,” said the man.
Nate looked at me.
I had already told him forty-two was the bottom of the jar.
Past forty-two there was no money for paint.
No money for a furnace filter.
No money for anything.
“Forty-one five,” Nate said.
Dobbs looked toward the landlord.
The landlord stared at his paper for several seconds.
Then he shook his head.
“Sold,” Dobbs called. “Forty-one thousand five hundred. Your name, sir?”
“Schafer,” Nate said. “Nathan and Emily. Both names.”
Inside the county clerk’s office, I handed over the cashier’s check.
Then I opened the bank envelope and counted out fifteen hundred dollars in cash.
Mostly twenties.
Near the bottom were fives and ones.
The bills still carried a faint diner smell of coffee and fryer grease.
The deputy clerk counted the money twice and did not make one comment about it.
I will always be grateful to her for that.
She wrote the receipt.
“The deed should come in six or eight weeks,” she said. “Sheriff’s office had the keys from when they boarded up the back door.”
She slid a manila envelope across the counter.
“Nobody’s going to complain if you start mowing.”
Inside was a ring with seven old keys.
Two were skeleton keys.
None were labeled.
We drove to the house with the truck windows down.
At the bottom of the porch steps, we stopped.
Nate held the ring of keys.
His hand was trembling.
Mine was too.
He looked at the house.
Then at me.
“Capable.”
“Don’t.”
That was all it took.
We started laughing.
Not polite laughter.
The kind that arrives after exhaustion and hurt have been packed too tightly together for too long.
I sat down on the bottom porch step because my knees stopped cooperating.
The step held.
That seemed promising.
We still did not tell anyone.
By then secrecy had become less of a rule and more of a habit.
There was pride in it too.
I can admit that.
I wanted to invite the family only when we had something worth showing.
I wanted to be able to say, Come to dinner.
Then give them an address.
The house was nowhere near ready.
The fourth key opened the front door.
Inside smelled of mice, damp plaster, and old pipe tobacco.