Leah has known my family for fifteen years. She was there for the summer my parents made Adam’s entire college tuition appear while I worked two jobs to cover mine, a story I have told to very few people because every time I tell it I feel like I’m proving something unflattering about myself. She was there when Adam totaled his car at twenty-four and my parents bought him a used replacement without a word of expectation that he’d pay them back. She was not surprised by what I was telling her now.
“Walk me through the numbers again,” she said.
“House sold for somewhere around three hundred and ten,” I said. “Mortgage payoff plus transaction costs is probably close to ninety. Net proceeds somewhere around two-twenty. They gave Adam a hundred and eighty, which means they’re keeping forty.”
“And they have retirement income?”
“Dad has a pension from his job at the county — small but it’s there. Mom has Social Security and whatever they’d been putting away, except apparently they’ve been putting it toward this.”
“So they have forty thousand in reserves, plus monthly income, and they want to live with you.”
“That’s what they said.”
“Have they looked at any rentals?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. It didn’t sound like a thing they’d done. It sounded like a thing they had decided wasn’t necessary because I have a spare room.”
Leah was quiet for a moment. “Natalie,” she said. “That spare room is your office.”
“I know that.”