A Mother’s Love
Devon walked over to the front porch and stared out at the street and beyond to the houses there.
She wanted this house something awful, but she still wasn’t at all sure she could manage it.
She felt as if she was even here on false pretenses in a way since her finances were so tight.
She couldn’t see a way to make this happen.
The house was old, and it was small, yet the quaintness to it made her feel like she was home.
The twins came racing over. “Can we stay? Can we have it, please, please?”
The Realtor had called Devon out of the blue as she was coming home from work, saying that she had a house for her to look at.
Before she could say no, she was persuaded to come, maybe because she’d had a crap day and had been too tired to put up much of a fight.
The twins were with her. She’d just picked them up from school, and now she wandered around the empty house with them.
The Realtor walked over and asked, “What do you think?”
“Well, … sure, if I had the money, I would absolutely love to buy this,” she stated. “I just don’t think I can make it work.”
“Part of the reason I brought you over here,” said her Realtor, “is because they’re not asking much. A very old couple owned it, but they’ve passed away, and their son is also of an age where he’s going into a home himself and can’t look after it anymore, so he’s letting it go cheap.”
“Yeah, when people say cheap,” she began, with a wry look at her friend, “you and I both know that cheap is like … in the eye of the beholder, as they say.”
Madeline interrupted her with an opening sales figure that had Devon freezing on the spot.
“Seriously?” she asked, when she could breathe again. “You must be joking.”
“I’m not joking. Now you know why I wanted you to come, and to come now, because I don’t know who else they may have told.
The family sis looking at listing it with me, but they want it sold fast, and they don’t want any headaches with it.
They just want it gone,” she explained. “As far as I can tell, there’s absolutely no reason not to buy it.
The interest rates aren’t likely to get any lower than they are now, so it’s a really good time for you to get into this.
You need a great home for the twins, and they would stay in the same school. So, basically it’s perfect.”
“It is perfect,” the twins screamed in unison as they raced toward her again. “Can we get it, please?”
Devon didn’t know what to say. She looked over at her Realtor friend, still hesitant, and added, “I’ll have to talk to the bank.”
“And you’ll need to do it fast,” she insisted, “because I’m serious. This won’t last.”
“I know it won’t,” Devon muttered, followed by a groan. “Nothing ever lasts at these kinds of prices.”
“Exactly, which is why—”
“I know. I know.” Yet she felt horribly pressured.
Still, she got where Madeline was coming from.
Devon’s lease was coming due, and it was keeping her awake at night.
The rent had gone up considerably, and she wasn’t sure she could afford the new rates.
The mortgage payments on this house could potentially be a lot cheaper than her growing rent, and the money that Tabitha had left her could also help in a big way.
She frowned as she thought about it, then checked the time on her phone. “I’ll contact the bank in the morning.”
“You did apply for a loan already, didn’t you?”
“I did,” she confirmed, “but I’m not sure they were very happy with my application.”
“Times are tough for banks right now too,” Madeline noted, “so I wouldn’t worry about it. It’s just that I need you to do something about it fast, or this will be gone, and everything else will be tens of thousands more. And honestly, the way the market is, things are just going up and up.”
“I know it.”
“So, jump on it. I need you to get settled in a home where the rent won’t keep rising. I need to know you’re safe and that the twins have a place where they can be safe too.” Her voice cracked with emotions at that comment, and Devon understood.
The three of them had been friends for a very long time, and Madeline didn’t have any children, although she’d really hoped to, but ended up divorced before it happened.
Tabitha had children, and then her husband had passed on. Worse yet, Tabitha died soon afterward, after being diagnosed with breast cancer. So now Devon was looking after Tabitha’s twins, hoping rather desperately to find a place for them all. This home would probably be her best option.
She nodded determinedly. “I can only contact the bank and see what I can do about it.”
Madeline added, “I have a broker I work with a lot. I’ll get her to call you. Just get your documents ready. We can make an offer on this place, if you’re sure you want it, and that gives us some time to confirm we can get the financing.”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“He really does want to sell and hoped it would go to somebody who could use and appreciate it,” she noted. “The family was here before he was even born.”
She winced at that because that was always the thing.
People who had raised families in homes really wanted them to go to people who would take care of them, knowing that a lot of work was needed.
“Yeah, believe me that I can see that, but I’m not at all sure I’m the person to fix it up,” she admitted, looking around the place. “That takes money.”
“In this case, it’s more about elbow grease,” Madeline clarified, with a laugh, “and you and I both know we can do a lot of that ourselves.”
Devon laughed and had to agree. “Yeah, we did projects on Tabitha’s place God-only-knows how many times. But that time has come and gone,” she added, trying to ward off the tears that once again threatened to overcome her.
“Good,” Madeline replied, rubbing away her own tears. “We need to get you settled so I can at least know that I’ve done all I could do for her and the twins.”
“I hear you,” Devon muttered, “but I’ll still be stuck with a mortgage that may be more than I can afford.”
“She left you money for that, didn’t she?”
“She did, but it still isn’t that much.”
“I understand.” Madeline chewed on her finger, considering that.
“Think about it overnight. Contact the bank first thing. I’ll tell the seller that you’re very interested and perfect for the house, but you aren’t positive you’ll get the financing, and you need a little bit of time.
Now, if another buyer turns up in the meantime, I don’t know that we can do anything to stop it. ”
“Right,” Devon muttered, sighing. “Obviously, if they need to sell, they need to sell, but see what you can do. I’ll take the twins home and get my paperwork together and do what I can.”
But she knew in her heart that the banks were not very friendly, particularly since she was now a single mom raising twins, and the last time she contacted them, she wasn’t all that stable, financially speaking.
She didn’t understand how someone could ever get stable financially when banks won’t lend the money to buy a house and to start building equity, but it was an old argument.
You had to look good on paper, and, if you didn’t, the banks didn’t want to talk to you.
Loading up the kids, she started her car and took one last look at the house.
The kids were screaming, “We really, really want to move in there.”
She turned and looked at them. “But why? It’s just a house.”
“I know it’s just a house,” Tabby admitted, who was named after their mother.
“But I think it’s our house,” Toby clarified, dead serious as he stared at Devon.
“If it is, then it will all work out,” Devon suggested. “I’ll contact the bank in the morning, but, anytime I have tried in the past, they haven’t been very open to it.”
“It’ll be different this time,” Toby declared confidently.
“I hope so because I know you guys really want it, and I would love it as well. I’m ready to go in this direction if it works out, but I can’t make any promises because I know what happened before.”
“Yeah, but what happened before won’t happen again.”
Toby spoke with such confidence that she had to laugh. “I hope you’re right.”
He just smiled at her, and his expression had an almost otherworldly look to it.
She looked away, tears coming to her eyes.
This was not how she had expected her life to go, honest to God, but it’s the one thing she had been able to do for Tabitha.
Finding out her cancer was terminal had been bad enough.
Then learning that her cancer was far too advanced for treatment to do any more than make her last days bearable just made it heart-wrenchingly horrible.
Tabitha had vowed to take full advantage of every day she had.
The one thing Devon had been able to promise her friend was that she would look after the kids. They were eight, so she had at least ten years to ensure they felt loved and were fed and looked after. She had known them since birth, so, in many ways, it was the best answer for everyone.
The kids, although they had been absolutely devastated at losing their mom, seemed to accept it, taking it far better than she or Madeline had. Devon took one last look at the house in the rearview mirror.
Toby spoke up. “See? You really like it too.”
“It doesn’t matter if I like it or not, Toby,” she clarified. “I have to get the bank to agree. Without being able to borrow the money, I’m not sure we have much of a chance.”
He smiled. “No problem.”
She hesitated, then asked, “And you know that how?”
He looked at her with the wisdom of the ages and announced, “Because this is meant to be. Nothing can stop this from happening, not even you.”
Something about his tone sent chills up and down her spine. It was almost as if he had ordained it, and it had better come to pass … or else.