PART 3 — Dad Asked for Another Lease Before Answering One Question
Priya sent the inspection questions on Thursday. Dad answered some: Diane had operated the salon for four months, usually two or three clients a week. He had approved the sinks because he thought the changes were minor. He provided a business insurance certificate but no permit information for the plumbing or electrical work.
Priya forwarded his reply and asked whether I wanted to have the work assessed. I did. Dad called as soon as the electrician’s visit was scheduled. He said Diane felt as if I were preparing to throw them out. I told him I had not made a lease decision, but I needed to understand what had been changed.
“And Lily?” he asked. I waited, expecting him to ask how she was. Instead, he said, “How long are you keeping her away?” I told him she did not want a visit. He said she was nine and would take her cue from me. I asked when he planned to apologize to her without mentioning a replacement cake.
Dad said he had already apologized to me. I told him I was not the child who had watched her cake go into the trash while her grandfather laughed. He sighed and said I was making him sound cruel. “I’m telling you what happened,” I answered. He ended the call before we discussed the house again.
I spent the weekend doing what Lily had asked after her party: making the house feel ready for friends. She and Ava built a blanket fort in the living room. Owen helped them tape paper stars to the ceiling inside it. I baked plain cupcakes, and Lily decorated them with uneven yellow flowers. Nobody asked her to forgive anyone before she could enjoy them.
On Sunday, she asked whether Grandpa had sent the video. I said he had not. She nodded and chose the best cupcake to save for Ava. I wondered whether she wanted proof because she feared the adults would change the story. Dad’s voicemails and Ella’s message were already saved. I wished Lily had no reason to think she needed them.
The electrician inspected the salon on Tuesday. He found that a new outlet had been installed by an unlicensed handyman and recommended correcting it. The plumber found no immediate leak but said the additional sinks needed proper inspection. Priya sent Dad both reports and asked him to stop using the room for customers until the work was addressed.
Diane called me for the first time since the birthday. She said closing her salon would cost her clients. I told her the issue was the unauthorized work and that Priya had sent a clear path to resolve it. Diane accused me of treating her differently because she was not my mother. I said my mother had never run a business from the house.
She replied that my mother was gone and I should stop acting as though the rooms belonged to her. For a moment, I could not speak. Then I told Diane that I would communicate through Priya and ended the call. I wrote down what she had said. Not because it would decide the lease, but because I needed to stop telling myself her resentment was merely a misunderstanding.
Dad came to my office the following afternoon. Ben asked whether I wanted to see him; Dad had not made an appointment. I met him in the small conference room. He looked tired and held a bakery box. He had bought a yellow cake with Lily’s name on it. I told him not to leave it there.
He said he wanted to make things right. I asked why he had brought the cake to my office instead of calling Lily to apologize. Dad said he did not know what to say without upsetting her again. I suggested the words I laughed when you were hurt, and I was wrong. He looked down at the box.
“Diane says you’re planning to sell the house,” he said. I had not told Diane that. Priya had drafted options, and I had asked an agent for a valuation so I could understand them. I told Dad no decision had been made. He said he needed security and could not live with an eleven-week deadline hanging over him.
He was right to want a clear answer. I told him I would provide one within two weeks. The lease had always had an end date, but I had allowed him to assume renewal would be automatic. That uncertainty was mine to correct. Dad pushed the bakery box toward me again. I left it on the table when we walked out.
After he left, I found an email from a mortgage broker I did not know. She asked whether I would sign an owner authorization for a home equity application related to Maple Street. I called Priya before replying. Neither of us had submitted an application. Priya advised me to ask the broker what had been provided and to confirm in writing that I had not authorized a loan.
The broker called within an hour. Dad had told her he expected to purchase the house back from me after renewing his lease. He had provided an old property valuation and copies of the purchase paperwork. She had requested my authorization precisely because the current deed showed my name. No money had been advanced, and she would close the inquiry.
Dad had mentioned wanting to buy the house before. I had told him I would consider a realistic offer if he could qualify for financing. What troubled me was that he was pursuing it while refusing to answer questions about the property’s condition. Priya wrote to him stating that any purchase discussion must go through her and that the broker had no authority from me.
Dad responded with a long email. He said he had hoped to surprise me by buying the property back, ending the burden he believed I had carried. He also wrote that Diane wanted a home where she could build her business without asking my permission. I read that line twice. She had already begun building it in a house she did not own.
I showed the email to Owen. He asked whether I believed Dad could buy the house. I said I would review an actual offer, but he had no approved financing and the salon changes needed repair. Owen asked a different question: if Dad could buy it tomorrow, would I be comfortable with Lily visiting? I said no.
The answer helped me separate two decisions I had allowed to become one. Dad’s housing deserved fair notice and an honest discussion. Lily’s relationship with him depended on his behavior toward her. Renewing a lease could not purchase an apology. Ending one would not make him understand what he had done at her birthday.
Priya received the agent’s valuation at the end of the week. The house had held its value, but the salon alterations would need correction before a conventional sale. Priya laid out three choices: renew with strict conditions, negotiate a sale to Dad if he obtained financing, or give notice that the lease would end and list the property afterward.
I asked her to draft a letter offering Dad a limited opportunity to propose a purchase and requiring the work to be corrected. If he could not do both by a reasonable deadline, I would not renew the lease. Priya asked whether I was ready for him to receive that answer. I said I was ready to give it plainly.
That evening, Dad sent me the video. It began with Lily smiling beneath the birthday banner and ended seconds after the cake fell. He had not filmed the drive home or the party we held afterward. I watched it once with Owen. Dad’s laugh was audible. Lily’s face changed when she heard it.
I put the phone down. Owen asked whether I would show Lily. I said no; she could ask when she was older, and I would keep it safe. Then I forwarded it to Priya because Dad had insisted for days that his laughter had been misunderstood. The recording showed enough. I could finally stop arguing about whether it happened.
END PART 3
