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“Hello, Mr. Malloy.” I sit, my heart beginning to pound in a steady rhythm.
“It’s taken a bit longer than we thought for you to come in. Are you sure you’re ready?” he asks as his receptionist closes the door. “Some people have a very tough time with this conversation, understandably.”
Sure, I’m having a tough time, but not for the reason he thinks. “I’m ready, I assure you. I need to close this chapter.”
His small smile turns into a frown, the creases in his skin growing deeper. Immediately, a sinking feeling fills my stomach.
“Well, unfortunately, I’m not sure how quickly we’ll be able to close it for you.”
“What does that mean?” Panic blares in my head like an alarm as he slides a bunch of documents across the top of the desk toward me.
“Your mother came in here about two years ago, I’m not sure exactly why. I’m not sure if she knew something was going to happen, or if she really was trying to protect herself, or what.” He frowns again, and I can only imagine the act my mother put on when coming in here.
She often loved to prophesize to me about her death and funeral as if she were a saint that people would come hundreds of miles to see laid to rest.
“Anyway, she didn’t have much in terms of assets. What was in her savings and retirement was already allocated to cover the cost of the medical bills when she passed, and her burial expenses. She didn’t have any stock holdings, no inheritance to be passed to you, or anything else that would be given to you. The only thing available is her life insurance, and since you’re her only next of kin, it would fall to you.”
That doesn’t sound very complicated, but with my mother, there is always a catch.
“Now, that life insurance is about a hundred thousand, which should be paid out to you in time. However …”
Here comes that bandage rip; I can feel it.
“Your mother still owed about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars on the mortgage. Now, you could try to sell it, but with the way she refinanced, and then did so again, you might actually end up owing money. Basically, the property is upside down.”
I know jack shit about owning property, mortgages, or the housing market, so he could be speaking a different language to me right now. Maybe this isn’t cause for concern, and maybe I don’t need to panic.
“I’m sorry, what is being upside down?”
Marty is being patient with me, but I can tell he doesn’t like delivering such bad news. “Sometimes it’s called an underwater mortgage. It means the loan is higher than the value of the home at its current market price, or what you could get for it. Basically, if you tried to sell right now, you’d still owe on the original balance of the loan.”
Fuck, okay, so it’s definitely cause for concern. “So, you’re saying that even if I sold the house, I’d still owe a hundred and fifty thousand dollars?”
“Precisely. I’m sorry to give you that news.” He frowns once more, and I know he really means that.
What the fuck was my mother doing with her money and life? I can only imagine what she got up to, with shopping trips or gambling or trying to land some man by flashing a bunch of cash. And for her final act, she left me in a lurch, holding the smoking gun, trying to figure out what to do with it.
“What if the bank forecloses or I sell it to them or?” Again, I know jack shit about anything to do with real estate.
“That wouldn’t be an option, unless you could stop making payments on the mortgage. Which I wouldn’t advise, and they’d see the hundred-thousand-dollar life insurance policy,” he explains.
Meaning I have the funds to keep paying the mortgage until I dig myself out of the hole, so someone seizing the property isn’t feasible. Fuck my life, truly. This chapter is not going to close, not in the slightest.
“So, then, I just … keep making payments? Until I can pay off the mortgage to a point where the house can be sold?” This is worse than a nightmare.
I can’t even step foot in the house, and I’m supposed to keep owning the goddamn thing until I can get it off my hands? That could take years. That could take a huge chunk of my salary once I start working. Instead of building a future and a retirement for myself, it’s going to go to cleaning up one of her messes, even while she’s no longer on this earth.
Mom always did have the last laugh.
“We can try to set something up, see if there is any movement on the housing market. But for right now, I’d advise continuing the payments with the life insurance policy.” Marty nods and seems genuinely sad to be putting me in this predicament.
Where the hell am I going to come up with fifty thousand extra dollars in the near future? The answer is nowhere. Per usual, I have me and only me to depend on. So it looks like I’ll be the underdog once more for the foreseeable future.
After going over a few more details, Marty bids me farewell with another sad smile and apologizes for not being able to do more.
When it comes to my mother, I’m always being apologized to for something she’s done. I’m practically an expert in it now.
Walking out onto Newton Street, the main drag in Hope Crest, feels like I’m meandering through a haze. What felt like an optimistic start to the day has ended in disaster, and it isn’t even noon. I thought I was walking into the end of my relationship with my mother, but no. She’s just put another burden on my shoulders.
