The House I Bought Then Reclaimed

Jethro and I talk most weeks now. He calls to ask how I am doing, not what I can do for him, which took some getting used to on both our parts. He and Ivalou hosted their own Thanksgiving this year, a small one, in the rental with the good tablecloth Ivalou’s grandmother left her, and they invited me themselves, no message relayed through anyone, no father standing behind the decision. I sat at the head of a table I had not paid for and had never been asked to, and for the first time in years, I understood exactly what I was worth to the people sitting across from me, because I had finally stopped paying to find out.

Ivalou’s father was not there. I am told he has not spoken to his daughter much since the loan came due on his own business and the whole county found out the man who judged my coat for six years could not keep his own storefronts stocked past spring. I take no pleasure in that, or at least less than I might have a year ago. What I take pleasure in is smaller and steadier than that. I take pleasure in a rental house that smells like real turkey and not obligation, in a son who calls to check on me instead of to ask what I can cover, and in a purple folder still sitting in my kitchen drawer, a reminder that the people who love you honestly will never once flinch at reading the fine print of what you have given them, because they never intended to take it back.