The Lake House That Was Never Theirs

“Ma’am,” he finally said, “your father represented himself as the owner. I have paperwork.”

“So do I,” I told him. “Mine’s recorded at the courthouse. Yours isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.”

I did not cancel the Saturday showing. I decided, somewhere between the courthouse and the school parking lot, that I was going to be standing on that porch at ten o’clock myself.

Saturday morning I made coffee in my own kitchen, in the house that had always, legally, been my own kitchen, and at 9:55 a silver SUV pulled up the gravel drive behind the agent’s car. I watched a young couple climb out, the husband already pointing at the dock the way people point at things they are already imagining their children on.

The agent saw me on the porch and his step slowed like a man walking toward a dog he wasn’t sure about.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I think there’s been some confusion. Mr. Marchetti told me the seller would be away this weekend.”

“I’m not the seller,” I said. “I’m the owner. There’s a difference, and it’s the one your client failed to mention to you.”

I handed him the certified copies I had folded into my jacket pocket, the deed and the will both, and I watched him read them standing in my grandfather’s driveway with his mouth slightly open. The young couple stood by their car, confused and clearly embarrassed, and I felt for them, I truly did, they had done nothing but fall for a house that had never been for sale in the first place.