Something in my chest went tight.
“Yeah, bud,” I said. “I think she’d like that.”
He nodded and went back to spinning the ball. Then, without looking at me, he said, “Grandma always says you don’t clean right.”
“I know.”
“You clean fine,” he said. And went upstairs.
She sent the money back on day four.
All of it. Thirty-nine thousand, nine hundred dollars. Straight back into my account, with no note.
Marisol put it in escrow, like she said she would. She sent Diane a letter explaining it was still hers. Any time she wanted it.
Diane didn’t answer that either.
The condo closed on the twentieth. Her buyers wouldn’t let her out of the contract. She tried. She offered them five thousand dollars to walk away. They said no.
Rick Hollis kept four thousand dollars of her deposit for the custom door. He sent back the rest, and he sent her a copy of the voided permit from the city, with a note from the building department in red ink saying that misrepresenting ownership on a permit application could result in a fine. They didn’t fine her. The letter was enough.
