“You see me every day during our FaceTime calls,” I remind her as my father walks around and grabs me in a hug. “Hi, Dad,” I say, putting my head on his chest and listening to the sound of his heart beating.
He rubs his hands up and down my back. “You ready to see this house?” he asks me and I nod my head.
“This is my favorite one,” my mother shares, walking over to the gate and putting in the code. The door unlocks and she steps in. “I like that it’s got a cement wall so you can’t see the front door.” She looks over at me as we step in and I look at the house.
“That’s because if not, you would be able to see right in the house,” I say of the big window in the front. “Like I see everything.” I smile as she walks up the steps to the door and puts in a code on the lockbox for the key as it pops out. She opens the door and I step in behind her, seeing a three-piece sofa set facing the door. The high vaulted ceiling slants down and you see it’s filled with windows, showing you the sky. My eyes go up past the couch set to what is the upstairs loft area. The bottom part of the railing is white and the top is a dark-chocolate brown, almost black. It has a brown sofa pushed up against it.
“This is spacious,” my father observes, walking in behind me and closing the door. I slowly take steps into the house and stop at the staircase that is the same color as the railing upstairs.
Walking more into the house, the ceiling ducks down to a normal height but I stop when I see the back of the house has full floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the ocean. “Oh, wow.” I move past a little seating area that faces the family room.
My father walks into the family room and goes up the two steps to the dining room that is just off the kitchen. “This kitchen is the perfect size.” I follow him in there to see the L-shaped counter with two stools at the head.
My eyes go to one side of the wall that is all windows but facing a cement wall with vines all over it. “That’s a bit scary,” I say of the sink that faces the wall. “Imagine you are washing the dishes and a head pops up.”
My father laughs, walking around the island that has another sink. The cabinets are a dark brown. “This house has three bedrooms,” my mother says, “and although it doesn’t have a pool, it has a newly remodeled jacuzzi.”
“Her backyard is literally a pool.” My father points toward the ocean.
“Two out of the three bedrooms have private balconies facing the ocean.”
“How much is this house?” I ask them as I take the steps back to look out the windows to the ocean, seeing some outside furniture.
“What difference does that make?” my father asks, putting his hands in his pockets. “The question is do you like it?”
“What do you mean ‘what difference does it make?’ It makes a huge difference. I have a budget,” I inform him and he looks at my mother. “Mom, you know my budget, right?” I question. I didn’t want anything too big, nor did I want to go over two million dollars. I don’t know how much I’m going to get from Trent, but that was what I had in my bank account that I’d accumulated over the years.
“I do,” she confirms, “and this is in the budget.” She looks at my father. “Should we go upstairs and see the bedrooms?”
I follow them up the stairs and step into the loft area. Built-in custom cabinets are against the wall, with a brown love seat that faces a television. “This is cozy,” I say, looking to the left where two big double doors are open and I see a long brown chaise. I walk across the wood floor to the bedroom. Stepping into the room, on the left-hand side is a long dark-brown built-in lining the hallway with a cream-colored counter that faces the entry of the open bathroom. The floor looks like it’s little seashells glued together. My heels click on it as I look to the left side and see the massive shower that could fit about fifteen people, with the bathtub against the glass shower wall.
“This is a little—” my father says, taking in the glass windows that face the same cement wall that is in the kitchen. “Can you see in here?” he asks my mother, who laughs.
“It’s frosted from the outside,” she assures him. “You can look out, but they can’t look in.”
The shower faces the double vanity, and if you walk deeper into the room, you are taken to the walk-in closet. “It’s so dark,” I mention of the dark cabinets. “Do you think we can swap this out for white?”
She nods her head. “That’s an easy fix. Go and see the balcony.” She motions with her head toward the bedroom. Walking past the king-size bed, I open the door and step out, seeing the beach right under my feet, and the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore. “The view is everything.”
My mother steps out, followed by my father. “This house is two million dollars?” I ask her and she looks over at my father.
“It’s five,” my father admits and I gasp.
“Why would you show me a house that is over my budget?”
“Because it’s not over your budget,” he refutes. “Consider this your wedding present”—I laugh—“and your divorce present.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Well, you and Trent eloped,” he explains. “I mean, not eloped, you had a small wedding without us there.” I am not getting into that right now. I don’t want to upset him by telling him Trent wanted just five people there because he didn’t want the uproar of my family to take the focus away from me. That is what he went with, and that is what he had me believe. Looking back on it now, I can’t believe I ever agreed with him. “We gave your sister a house in New York before she even got hitched, and now, she doesn’t even live in the city.”
“I’m not going to take your money.”
“Okay, then if we buy it, will you stay in it for us?” I roll my eyes when he asks me that. “What? It’s an investment and we want to make sure it’s taken care of, and what better person to do it than you?”
“I’m supposed to be buying this house myself,” I remind him. “It’s a big step for me.”
“Okay, so what if we go halfsies?” he counters. “And when you take Trent to the cleaners, then you can pay us back.”
