The House I Bought Back for Dad

“The implement dealer 401(k),” I said. “I cashed it out.”

“You’re fifty-three,” he said. “That’s the penalty. That’s the taxes. You’ll lose a hundred thousand dollars doing that.”

“About that,” I said.

He put both hands flat on the desk and looked at them. “You could have just come and yelled at me,” he said.

“You could have told me I was a no-good. I’d have taken it.”

“And then what?” I said. “You’d still owe on that lake lot at the end of October. And some nice people from Scottsbluff would have Dad’s house.”

He didn’t have an answer for that. He knew it was true.

“I was going to find him a good apartment,” he said, very quietly. “First floor. By the hospital. I was going to help him move.”

“I know you were,” I said. “But you never asked him. He found out from Esther. With a coffee cake.”

Wyatt shut his eyes. I watched him take that one in. My brother is not a bad man.

He was a scared man, with a slow shop and a dream he’d had since he was twelve, who told himself a story until he believed it.

But a story is not a reason to sell a roof out from over your father’s head, and I wasn’t going to tell him it was.

“If you sign that,” I said, “I’m putting the house back in Dad’s name the same day. All of it. Nobody’s name but his.”

Coral looked down at her desk. Wyatt looked at the offer one more time.

Then he took his reading glasses out of his pocket, put them on, picked up the pen and signed it. Accepted, full price, no counter.

He didn’t look at me when he did it. He handed the paper to Coral, stood up and walked out without another word.

Through her window I watched him walk back up the avenue toward his shop with his hands in his pockets.

Coral let out a long breath. “Well,” she said. “I’ve never had one like that.”

The money landed on a Wednesday, fifteen days after Dad found the sign.

The title company set closing for Friday morning at nine, in the little conference room with the county plat maps framed on the wall.

Wyatt signed his side on Thursday afternoon, separately, so we didn’t have to sit at the same table. I don’t know if that was his idea or Coral’s. Either way I was grateful.

On Friday I signed my side and handed over a cashier’s check for the balance.

The title officer, a gray-haired lady who had worked there since Dad and Mom bought the place, slid the papers across one at a time and told me where.

Then I asked her to draw up one more. A plain deed, from me to Leopold Brandvold, for the same house.

She looked at me over her glasses for a second. Then she just said, “Yes sir,” and went and got the form.