closure. I’d always regretted having to sell this building. But being here brought a dull ache to my chest and made my shoulders feel like I was carrying a barbell with a hundred pounds of weights.
The building was eleven stories, so it took us a while to walk through. By the time we got to the top floor, the place my parents had imagined making into theirs, I was starting to feel like I needed some fresh air.
I tugged at my tie and loosened it as I followed Andi around. She pointed to a wall of windows. “These are old, obviously. And not very heat efficient for Chicago winters. But Marie loved them. She told Michael she wanted to have them made into doors to use inside the space as room separators. I’m not sure how easy that is to do, but he seemed to love the idea.”
I didn’t know my dad had brought an interior designer in. “Marie? Would you happen to have her contact info? I hadn’t realized he’d started working with an interior designer already. We’d only done the layout of the conversion together, not any decorating.”
Andi laughed. “Your mom, Marie…not an outside designer.”
“My mom’s name was Athena.” It wasn’t a name people heard too often outside of Greek History class.
“Really?” Her brows drew down. “I could swear we had a whole conversation about how we had the same name in reverse. I’m Louise Marie, and she said she was Marie Louise.”
The real estate agent looked confused, and then abruptly seemed almost flustered. She shook her head and turned to walk to the other side of the room.
“Umm… That’s right. I’m…confusing her with another client. I’m so sorry about that…Athena...right.”
People made mistakes with names all the time. Hell, I didn’t remember most people’s names thirty seconds after I met them. But something about Andi told me she hadn’t made any mistake. Though, that made no sense.
My head was definitely screwing with me here—all the memories of the time Dad and I had spent together working on this building. I let the funny feeling I had pass in favor of finishing the tour. Outside, I gulped fresh air into my lungs.
“So the seller is looking to get out clean—pay what he paid and walk away. But I have a feeling there might be some wiggle room. Between us, it’s not a very amicable divorce, and I think a fast sale and not dragging out separating assets might make them willing to take it at a small loss.”
I nodded, but felt wiped out for some reason. I was glad I’d decided to stay in town tonight to walk through with a building engineer tomorrow because I had a feeling half of what I saw today might be a blur by morning. My emotions were really screwing with me.
“Would you like any suggestions for dinner or anything?” Andi asked after she locked the front door. She still seemed slightly off—almost standoffish or nervous.
“No, thank you. The hotel has a restaurant in it, and I’ll probably just eat there.”
“Okay…so…I’ll see you at nine tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Nine o’clock. Thanks for the tour today.”
I got into my rental car and watched as Andi pulled away. Rather than start the car, I rested my head on the headrest for a few minutes with my eyes closed. I took a few deep breaths, but couldn’t shake the screwed-up feeling in my gut.
So I picked up the phone and called the accounting manager at my office. “Hey, Dan. It’s Ford. Do we still have my parents’ expense reports from years ago?”
“We keep six years of records in one of the storage units. IRS can generally go back and audit you for the last three years, but if they find a substantial error, they can go back six. Your dad liked to stay on the safe side, especially since he certainly had the storage space. Do you need something?”
“Think you can pull both my dad and my mom’s expense reports and see if my mom ever came on any of my dad’s trips to Chicago?”
“Yeah. Sure. Give me a few hours.”
“Thanks, Dan.”
***
Some thoughts are like a loose thread in a sweater. You can either pull it and chance unraveling the entire thing, or cut it off and move on. When Andi said my mom had come to Chicago with my dad on more than one occasion, it was a loose thread. But I cut it off and moved on, able to chalk it up to my mom