29. Real Estate and Regret Cliffs
REAL ESTATE AND REGRET CLIFFS
Felicity
Instead, I felt weighed down at the kitchen counter, coffee rapidly cooling while Maverick lined up his toy horses along the windowsill and narrated their impending rodeo.
Maybe my sense of inertia was a defense mechanism.
If I pretended nothing was ending, maybe the actual ending would sneak by without landing a punch.
Today’s date was highlighted on my Saddleback calendar.
“Dawson & Sadie’s Wedding/Last Day” stared at me from the alert banner, as if I couldn’t be trusted to remember one of the most bittersweet days of my life.
I’d been looking forward to Sadie and Dawson’s wedding since my first meeting with Sadie.
I felt honored to be any part of a Lockhart wedding.
But this was also my last day as a Lockhart Ranch employee.
I couldn’t quite believe it was actually here.
I was watching Maverick try to fashion a lasso out of an extension cord when my phone vibrated face-down on the counter.
I let it ring, part of me briefly hoping it was a spam call designed to save me from whatever news waited on the other end.
I should have known the universe wasn’t that generous.
When I picked it up, I saw Vicki Blair RE/MAX on the screen, a reminder of the grown-up responsibilities I’d decided to shoulder and which now threatened to crush me under their weight.
I pressed answer and brought the phone to my ear. “Hey, Vicki, how are—”
Vicki didn’t waste time on pleasantries. “Felicity Foster, are you sitting down?” she asked, voice syrup-smooth and excited. Through the receiver, I could practically hear the clack of her acrylics against her tablet, already typing out her victory speech for Top Seller of the Quarter.
I lowered into a kitchen chair, balancing my coffee on one knee. “I am sitting. What’s up?”
She launched straight in. “We got an offer on the farm, honey. All cash. Full asking price and then some. It’s the kind of thing you see in Portland, not out here. I told you listing now and not waiting was the right move.” She paused, probably waiting for my shrieks of joy.
I didn’t shriek. I didn’t even smile. Instead, I let my gaze drift past Maverick’s horses to the field outside, where the fog was starting to lift over the blackberries and the old barn. “Wow. That’s…fast,” I managed.
“Fast is good!” Vicki chirped. “It’s twenty over asking. They want to close in thirty days. No contingencies. They’ll even waive inspection if you want. I’m going to be honest, Felicity, this is a dream offer. You’d be crazy not to take it.”
She kept talking, but the words swirled past me, a dizzying stream of numbers and legalese.
I knew what I was supposed to say, “Yes, please, let’s sign.
When do we pop the champagne?” Instead, I pictured lilac bushes lining the driveway, saw Maverick riding Cowboy, learning to drive stick in Dean’s truck, and him in a tux getting ready to leave for prom.
This farm had been everything and more that I’d wanted for Mav’s childhood.
It had answered my maternal prayers. Now I was being told—politely, efficiently, that it was time to let it go.
“Can I—Can I think about it?” I asked, surprised my voice worked at all.
There was a beat of silence on the line, then Vicki’s tone shifted to something more transactional. “Of course. But these buyers aren’t likely to wait. It’s a buyer’s market. I’d hate to see you lose your shot at getting everything you wanted, Felicity. I doubt we’d be able to get this deal again.”
I looked at Maverick, who was now wrangling his plastic horses into rodeo positions. “I know what I said,” I told her, “and I’ll call you back.”
“Okay, hon. But sooner rather than later, all right?” Vicki’s voice strained, just a little. “Like I said, you probably won’t get another offer this good.”
I ended the call, then set the phone down like it was made of plutonium.
My heart was pounding hard, a reflex, maybe, from years of bracing for bad news instead of good.
Twenty thousand over. No inspection. Thirty days close.
All cash. In theory, this was everything I’d said I wanted.
More, actually. Even so, the finality of it made my stomach lurch at the thought of selling this place.
But what was the point of keeping it when, this time next week, Maverick and I would be Denver residents?
The alarm on my phone sounded. I had thirty minutes to get to the ranch.
“We need to leave in half an hour, Mav. Make sure you brush your teeth.”
I headed to the main bedroom and as soon as I walked in, I stopped, staring in the mirror that had once reflected Dean and I in a very intimate moment. Thinking back on that night, the hope I’d had, it was insane to me how quickly that hope had been crushed, and all my life goals had imploded.
Had I been naive to trust in what I was feeling?
Probably. But now I barely recognized my life.
I was surrounded by moving bags, ones Selma Lockhart herself had helped pack despite being disappointed that I was leaving.
Not only had Selma helped out, Damon had offered to drive my SUV and a trailer to Denver for me so Maverick and I could fly.
Dean had made improvements on the house, upgrades to help with its resale value.
He never worked when I was home, always when I was at work.
It was clear he was avoiding me, but I didn’t blame him after our last conversation.
It wasn’t just the Lockharts who had stepped up. Gen offered to throw me a going away party. I’d lived in town less than six months, yet I felt like I was leaving my hometown. It’s the first place I’d ever felt like I belonged, and I was willingly moving away, putting it in the rearview.
I wasn’t the only one with reservations. Mav had cried for two days straight when I told him we were moving. He’d even asked if he could stay and live with Selma or Dean. When I told him that wasn’t possible, he’d sulked for a week.
But that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst part of all this was, after I turned in my resignation, Dean asked to talk to me.
We went to his office, and he offered me a complete buyout.
I sat there in shock. It was the first conversation we had after I’d accused him of using me for his own gain, I barely said a word to him.
After I was able to find my voice, I asked him why he’d gone seven days without any communication with me. He explained he was working on fixing the loan issue as if that response was as obvious as asking someone if they can breathe oxygen or not. Of course they could.
The answer was obvious, to him at least. To me, not so much.
I’d spent a week assuming that things were over between us.
He’d gone radio silent after I’d confronted him with my uncle’s letter.
I interpreted his behavior as him either being offended that I’d accused him of starting a relationship with me to keep me close, and his family of hiring me to do the same, or that the accusations were actually true and there was no reason for him to continue since I’d caught him.
Not in a million years did I think that in the week we’d gone without any communication, he’d filled his time working twenty-four seven, not sleeping until he figured out a solution, which is what he’d told me he’d done.
But I had to admit, once he told me that, it made sense.
Dean was a problem solver, not a great communicator.
Since walking out of that meeting with Dean, I was having serious second thoughts.
I wasn’t sure if I was making the worst mistake of my life.
But even if I was, things had gone too far now to back out.
I’d handed in my resignation. Told Maverick, told his preschool, told Nonna. Put the house up for sale.
I’d made my bed now I had to lie in it. Unfortunately, I’d be doing that in Denver.
I’d just put on the finishing touches of makeup and slid my earrings in when my phone rang again. This time it was from an independent attorney I’d hired to look over the deal Dean had offered me.
I answered, “Hi Mr. Connoly.”
“Please, call me Edward,” he insisted.
“Okay, hi Edward,” I complied.
He explained the reason for his call was that the offer Dean was giving me regarding the buyout was outstanding. He also told me it would probably be more than I’d get if I pursued it in court.
Not sure what I was supposed to do with that information. I thanked him for looking into it and hung up, feeling more confused than ever.
I’d been so quick to put up my emotional walls with Dean, looking back, maybe I should have talked to him before I’d made such huge life choices. But it didn’t feel like we were a team anymore. In fact, it felt like he’d abandoned me, just like everyone else in my life.
Knowing that wasn’t the case, was a mind-fuck for me. I wasn’t sure how to reconcile it.
I’d allowed Tanner, who knew my greatest fears, and I wasn’t talking about spiders or the dark, I was talking about the soul-tormenting insecurity that people would only be close to me if I could give them something, and everyone I love always leaves, to get in my head.
Abandonment issues were a real thing, and I had them in spades.
I was trying to talk myself down from the regret cliff when Maverick came into my room.
“Mama, do we have to leave? I love my home so much.” Mav demonstrated that love by hugging the doorframe.
His question reinforced my fear that I had not made my decision from a clear-headed place of independence, but I’d made it because it saved me from the heartache of Dean getting bored and leaving me just like everyone I’d ever loved had.