Page 41 of The Sea-Mist Cottage Inn
When I was a kid, I’d thought we were essentially poor. Like I’ve said, we lived at a level not far above subsistence, and I was responsible for most of the cost of my own upkeep from the timeI was thirteen. Certainly there had not been a lot of money going toward living expenses, much less any kind of indulgence. And maybe it was true; maybe the upkeep of the cottages devoured any profits from the business.
But I was looking at a property tax statement that showed an assessed value of the Sea-Mist and the land it stood on of almost three million dollars. Not the sales value of the property, the tax assessment. That very delinquent tax bill, with accrued taxes, interest, and penalties, was nearly two hundred thousand dollars.
If I liquidated my pension account from teaching in Arkansas, drained all the funds I had at my disposal now, and maxed out my credit card, I could maybe pay half that bill. But I’d have no way of getting the Sea-Mist in shape to open—or to feed Wyatt and myself, for that matter.
Or I could take Manfred up on the offer he’d made that day in Cottage 12, sell the place to him and buy a little house in town and start over that way. Maybe I could get a teaching job at Bendixen or somewhere else within commuting distance.
I didn’t know the details of the offer Manfred had made—his card was still lying where he’d dropped it—but if the assessment was almost three million dollars, the sales value was significantly more. Millions of dollars. For a property that I owned free and clear, except for the property tax.
The decision was a no-brainer, obviously. Behind Door Number One: panic, struggle, and hopelessness as I tried to scrounge uptwo-hundred grandto clear this bill and then to figure out how to get the Sea-Mist earning again without any resources to make that happen. Behind Door Number Two: a likely windfall ofmillionsof dollars, with which Wyatt and I might build a new life anywhere we wished. His college would be secure. Even if he wanted to be a neurosurgeon or somethingand study for ten years, his college would be secure. (He didn’t; at fifteen, he wanted to be a journalist. Or an archeologist.)
Behind Door Number Two was nothing but sunny skies and dreams fulfilled.
Only a fool would choose Door Number One.
So ... yeah. I guess I’m a fool.
We’ll get into the reasons I made the choice I did, but I swear I did not make my choice while I was sitting in Mayor Holt’s office, staring at a poster-size framed photograph of him grinning on a golf course, his hand on the shoulder of a portly, tanned, balding man in red striped golfing pants and a navy sweater vest with white stars over a white polo. Stars-and-Stripes seemed vaguely familiar to me, in an in-the-news sort of way, which was probably why that photo was so obnoxiously huge.
“Can I have some time to figure out what to do about this?” is what I asked the mayor.
“Of course,” he replied, wearing a smile I had in my own repertoire. It was a teacher’s smile, the gently firm expression we use when we’re conferencing with a student who has blown off most of the semester and is now trying desperately to save their grade. “Nobody on the council—nobody in town, I imagine—wants you to be foreclosed on. There’s not much interest in the development Manfred and his associates have planned.”
Before I could feel relief at that, he added, “But, Leo, please understand. The property is seriously in arrears, and Manfred is determined. I imagine he’s working above my head already, and probably has been for some time. If the county or state start proceedings, there’s not much I can do to get in the way.”
“How much time do you think I have?”
He shrugged. “Luckily in this case, the legal system is slow. Two weeks? Three, maybe? Once the process starts, you’ll haveuntil five days before the sale to pay in full, so that’s another few weeks. Maybe six weeks in all.”
Six weeks seemed more like some space to put off the inevitable than time to actually accomplish anything, but in that moment being able to put off the inevitable felt not unlike a gift.
That tiny atom of not-horrific news softened the muscles in my neck and shoulders and stretched my lungs back to full capacity. I sighed. “Okay. Thank you for your time today, sir. I’ll figure out what to do next.”
When I stood, so did he. He offered his hand, and we shook over his desk. “I hope things work out for you, Leo. Whatever you decide to do.”
My smile was sincere. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind, and very helpful.”
“Of course. You’re one of us—and I, for one, am glad to have you home.”
MY BRAIN CHURNED ONthe drive home.I have to sellwas a refrain bouncing off the inside of my skull, shouted by the sensible, mature, realistic version of me. The woman I’d been for the past twenty years. That version had only the one line, but she had a megaphone.
Obviously I had to sell. I owned a multi-million-dollar property that I would lose,would get zero dollars for, over a $200,000 delinquent property-tax bill I could not pay. Ironic, right? Selling, even selling for less than its value, could set Wyatt and me up comfortably. Possibly for the rest of our lives. Sensible, mature, realistic Leo was right. Obviously I had to sell.
But the stubborn, angry version of me, who’d been around much longer but who had, for those past twenty years, been mainly locked up in my brain’s cellar with the childhood that had formed her, crossed her arms, sucked her teeth, and remindedme that Darryl Manfred would win if I sold, even if I didn’t sell to him—and let’s be honest; his was the only offer on the table. That skeevy, sexist, self-important shithead would get his way. The thought made the back of my throat itch.
Worse than him, angry teen me said,my motherwould win if I sold.
That thought pulled me up a little. How would my mother win?
As that question rolled to the fore of my churning mind, dusty echoes of my mother’s voice rose in a chorus:Worthless.Stupid.Ugly. No good. Clumsy. Failure. Parasite. Nothing.
What do you think a dumb little bitch like you is ever going to make of your life? What do you think you have to offer anybody? You’ve been hanging around my neck for eighteen years, so I know—I know better than anybody. Nothing. You never been nothing. You’ll never be nothing. You were born to be a weight around my neck. That’s all you’ll ever be.
I had made something of myself, I thought. On my own, I managed college, and later got a Master’s. I was a tenured teacher, a career I loved. I’d married a man who loved me. We’d made a beautiful child. We’d been financially comfortable. Away from my mother and her poisonous soul, I had made something of myself, and I had been happy.
I’d also thought I’d been secure, but it turned out that the main supports of that successful, happy life had been made of balsa wood. That financial comfort had been Micah’s smoke-and-mirrors magic act. I hadn’t seen behind the mirrors because I’d let him ‘handle our books,’ which really meant ‘control our finances.’ He was better at that stuff, I’d thought, so I’d let him handle it and skipped along happily thinking everything was great.
Really, I understood on that drive from the mayor’s office, I’d been so thoroughly dominated by my mother (teen Leonorascoffed angrily at that notion, but it was true; my ‘rebellions’ had all been small and cautious, thus really just symbolic) that I hadn’t understood how much control I’d handed right over to Micah without a qualm. I hadn’t even known what being in charge of myself would look like.
