Two weeks after my father told me an $8,000 roof repair couldn’t wait another day, I saw my younger sister floating in a brand-new hot tub on that same roof, holding a champagne glass and smiling like she’d won the lottery. The picture stayed on my phone while something cold and heavy settled in my stomach. Then I noticed my father in the background, standing beside a grill in a ridiculous captain’s hat.
Chapter 3
Dad listed the hot tub for sale the following morning.
Amy called before lunch.
“What did you do?”
“I asked for my money back.”
“Dad says he has to sell the hot tub.”
“That would be because he bought it with my money.”
“But we just got it.”
“We?”
“It’s at Mom and Dad’s.”
“Amy, there are twelve photographs online. You’re in eleven.”
She sighed dramatically. “You’re acting like they robbed a bank.”
“They invented a roof emergency to get eight thousand dollars from me.”
“It was sort of an emergency.”
“How?”
“The deck looked empty.”
I closed my eyes.
I was sitting in the security office while, on one monitor, a man attempted to return a patio umbrella that had clearly been struck by lightning.
“Amy, did you know Dad lied about the roof?”
She hesitated.
That was enough.
“I didn’t know exactly what he told you.”
“But you knew he was asking me for money.”
“Maybe.”
“And you knew it was for the hot tub.”
“Dan, everybody helps family.”
“Excellent. Send me eight thousand.”
“I don’t have eight thousand dollars.”
“Now you’re beginning to understand.”
She hung up.
Dad sold the hot tub two days later for $5,100. It had existed in their family for less time than most leftovers and had already lost nearly three thousand dollars in value.
He transferred four thousand to me.
I called immediately. “Where’s the rest?”
“I had expenses.”
“What expenses?”
“Removal.”
“The buyer removed it.”
“Cleaning.”
“The buyer cleaned it.”
“Dan, I need money to live.”
“Twenty-three days.”
Three days later he asked whether my store had an employee bulletin board.
Soon the break room displayed handwritten ads for equipment from Frank’s Harbor Club.
COMMERCIAL POPCORN MACHINE — LIGHTLY USED.
VINTAGE BAR STOOLS — SET OF FOUR.
JUKEBOX — BEAUTIFUL CONDITION.
ANIMATRONIC PIRATE — RESTAURANT, BAR, SEAFOOD BUSINESS, EVENT SPACE.
My coworker Marcus stood in front of the pirate advertisement for nearly a minute.
“Why does your father own this?”
“You don’t want to know.”
Marcus pointed to the photograph. “Is that thing eight feet tall?”
“Approximately.”
“Does it talk?”
“Unfortunately.”
Marcus bought the popcorn machine for ninety dollars.
Dad had paid more than five hundred.
A week later, Dad attempted a secret Saturday liquidation while Mom visited her sister.
He posted an online ad and opened the basement to strangers.
By noon, cars lined both sides of the street.
Someone bought three stools. A young couple bought the pretzel machine. A college student paid cash for the traffic light, proving there truly is a buyer for everything if you wait long enough.
Then Mom came home early.
Dad called me whispering.
“Your mother is here.”
“So?”
“There are people in the basement.”
I leaned back in my office chair. “Frankly, Dad, that sounds like your problem.”
“She can’t see what’s down there.”
In the background I heard Mom shout, “Frank, why is a man carrying a traffic light through my kitchen?”
Dad panicked.
“It’s Daniel’s!”
I sat upright.
Mom’s voice came closer. “Daniel?”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Why did you store a traffic light in our basement?”
Dad was whispering, “Please, please.”
I had three seconds to decide whether my mother’s marriage survived Saturday afternoon.
“Store promotion,” I said.
“What kind of store promotion requires a traffic light?”
“Our promotions have gotten strange.”
A woman passed through the kitchen carrying the pretzel warmer.
Mom said, “And that?”
“Same promotion.”
There was a long silence.
Because my store sold kayaks beside Christmas decorations in September, Mom finally accepted that explanation.
After that scare, Dad stopped treating my deadline as theoretical.
He sold the shuffleboard table. Two arcade machines disappeared. The commercial refrigerator went to a church hall. The vintage mirror sold to a collector for less than half what Dad had paid.
Rufus was more difficult.
Nobody wanted a nearly three-hundred-pound mechanical pirate that needed to be bolted to the floor because, according to the manufacturer’s manual, “unexpected movement may occur during performance.”
Eventually a seafood restaurant forty miles away offered $1,400.
Dad wanted three thousand.
I reminded him he had nine days left.
Rufus sold.
I was there when two restaurant employees came to remove him because Dad needed help guiding the pirate up the narrow basement stairs. Halfway up, one employee accidentally hit the power switch.
Rufus came alive sideways.
“WELCOME ABOARD!”
The employee holding his shoulders screamed.
Rufus’s mechanical arm swung toward the wall and knocked down a framed photograph.
“WHO’S READY FOR A DRINK?”
“Turn him off!” Dad yelled.
Mom called from upstairs. “What’s going on down there?”
Dad shouted, “Television!”
Rufus bellowed, “THIRSTY SAILORS!”
Mom yelled, “What are you watching?”
Dad looked desperate.
“Pirates!”
I had to go outside because I was laughing too hard to breathe.
Dad didn’t laugh.
He stood in the driveway watching the truck carry Rufus away like a widower watching a ship leave port.
For a moment, I felt sorry for him.
Then I remembered the dishwasher.
“You have six days.”
“I know.”
By day twenty-seven, he still owed me $1,260.
Amy contributed three hundred dollars and sent it through an app with the note: HOPE YOU’RE HAPPY.
I sent back a thumbs-up.
She called immediately.
“Was that necessary?”
“You sent money with an insult attached.”
“You could at least understand why I’m upset.”
“You got two weeks in a luxury hot tub for three hundred dollars. That’s cheaper than a vacation.”
“It’s not about the money.”
“It has been about nothing except money.”
She didn’t speak to me for six weeks.
There are quieter forms of blessing.
Dad arrived at my apartment on day thirty carrying an old coffee can.
He set it on my table.
“What is that?”
“Money.”
I opened it.
Quarters, dimes, nickels, pennies, and at least one Canadian coin.
I stared at him.
“It spends,” he said.
We counted ninety-three dollars.
Then he produced an envelope with five hundred.
Then cash from his wallet.
Then, unbelievably, a brand-new cordless drill.
“I’m not accepting a drill.”
“It’s worth almost two hundred.”
“It’s not currency.”
“You work at a hardware store.”
“I work at a warehouse store. We still use dollars.”
He glared at me, took the drill, and left.
Twenty minutes later, a transfer hit my account for the remaining balance.
Eight thousand dollars.
Every cent.
I later discovered he’d borrowed the last $170 from Amy.
That pleased me more than it should have.
