If These Walls Could Talk

by Bettye Griffin

  “Good afternoon. This is Kevin Capobianco speaking. May I help you?”

  “Hello, Kevin,” she began. She introduced herself and explained her reason for calling.

  “Wonderful,” Kevin exclaimed. “I’d like to ask you a few questions for basic information, and we’ll go from there. You said your name was Dawn Young. Do you own the home alone, Ms. Young?”

  She decided Milo couldn’t possibly have taken his name off the deed in just a few days. “No, my husband is on the mortgage loan as well, but I don’t really want to include him on a second mortgage, unless I have to.”

  “I understand.”

  You don’t understand shit, she thought.

  “And, Mrs. Young, where do you live?”

  “Here in Tobyhanna. Our house is in Arlington Acres.”

  The pause that followed made Dawn uncomfortable. “Is there a problem?” she finally asked.

  “Well, we find that some of the homes in that particular subdivision have been overvalued. Tell me this, who was your builder?”

  She named the construction company.

  “Uh-huh,” Kevin said, none too reassuringly. “And with whom is your original mortgage?”

  Dawn proudly named the major banking institution who made the mortgage loan to she and Milo.

  “Was anyone else involved, like—” Kevin named the mortgage lender who had handled the paperwork on behalf of the bank.

  “Actually, yes, they were. But the mortgage was secured by the bank. We make our check out to them every month.”

  “Mrs. Young, that mortgage lending company is owned by the same people who own the construction company that built your house. We’ve had requests from home owners wishing to refinance, and through those requests we’ve learned that they engage in unethical practices to qualify borrowers for mortgages who wouldn’t otherwise qualify.”

  “How could they do that?”

  “Like paying the rent of home buyers to help them save a down payment, for instance. Banks like to know that the money used to put down came from their clients’ savings, not from other loans or arrangements they made with the financier. They also overstate the value of the homes they build by many thousands of dollars.”

  “Listen, I’m not sure what all this means, but are you saying you won’t be able to refinance my house?”

  “I’m afraid we won’t be able to help you out, Mrs. Young.”

  Dawn sighed. “Well, lucky for me that you’re not the only mortgage bank in town, isn’t it? I’ll just go to one of your competitors. Thank you.” She hung up, none too gently.

  Four phone calls later Dawn found a lender who would refinance her house. They arranged for an appraiser to come out on Saturday morning. Elated, she went to bed that night wearing a smile she couldn’t reel in. She’d taken the first step. Milo would soon come crawling back and telling her he’d underestimated her.

  “Mrs. Young, I’m afraid we won’t be able to help you.”

  Dawn’s mouth fell open. Carrie, the loan officer she had worked with, had given her the impression that the refinancing was a done deal, and now she was taking it all back. “I don’t understand,” she sputtered. “What happened?”

  “Our appraiser values your home at $105,000.”

  “Well, that’s ridiculous. We paid $142,000. Why would we pay forty thousand more than the house was worth?”

  “Mrs. Young, whoever did the original appraisal on your house inflated its value. I’m hearing that the appraisers were in cahoots with the builder and the lender who preapproved the loans, and got money from the big boys at the bank. I understand the builder is currently under investigation for this. I know I said I was sure we could help you. I’m very sorry.”

  Dawn, sitting at her desk at work, managed to keep her composure, but she wanted to lay her head down and weep. This was the only way she could think of to get the cash she needed to stay one step ahead of the wolves, and now she couldn’t do it. She hated to depend on Milo; she suspected his main concern was renting an apartment for himself. How in heaven’s name would she make it?

  Chapter 45

  The Currys

  August 2005

  Camille knew that when Reuben closed the door behind them in their bedroom he had bad news. “I talked to the bank today,” he began. “They wanted a definite date of when we’ll be bringing the mortgage back upto-date.”

  “What’d you tell them?”

  “That I don’t know. That the job market here isn’t as plentiful as it is in New York.” He paused. “They said they can’t wait any longer. They’re going to begin foreclosure procedures against us.”

  Camille felt her heart beating with loud, fast thuds. They would have to leave. But she loved living here, loved seeing wildflowers growing along the side of the road in the summertime. You never saw flowers in New York, unless they were already cut and being sold in bunches by street vendors. She even liked seeing the snow fall in the winter.

  Where would they go if they returned to New York? Worse, what would everyone say? Reuben’s family would have a field day, making one snide comment after another. But they would have to stay with someone, at least temporarily. They could neither afford to pay their mortgage nor rent an apartment until they had some money saved.

  Tears filled her eyes. All she and Reuben had wanted was to live someplace where their children could enjoy the American dream, where riding a bicycle didn’t present a logistical nightmare, someplace that would appreciate in value and allow them to have a little something of their own instead of making a landlord richer each month. But due to bad luck and—she couldn’t deny—poor planning, they were about to lose it all. They’d only gotten to the very edge of their dream.

  Her body went rigid. The people on the Titanic who didn’t get into lifeboats must have felt this sense of impending doom as the ship descended into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. But those unfortunate folks all died. She and Reuben wouldn’t stop living because they lost their house.

  One concern loomed over everything. “Reuben, where will we go?”

  “We’ll have to figure that out. First we’ll have to start packing so we can get our things moved into storage. As far as where we’ll stay, I’m sure that Mom will let Mitchell and me stay with her. I thought maybe you and Shayla can stay with Arnelle and Tiffany.”

  “Arnelle!” Camille felt genuinely horrified by this prospect.

  “I know you two have had some rough patches the last couple of years, but Arnelle seemed grateful to us for letting Tiffany come out for the summer. I’m sure she’ll want to help us now that we’re in a bind.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure if I were you, Reuben. Tiffany spent the summer here two years ago, just before you got laid off. I’m sure Arnelle’s forgotten all about it by now. What she’ll remember is that we couldn’t accommodate Tiffany last year.”

  Both Arnelle and Brenda had asked if their daughters could come out for the summer, but Reuben had said no. He explained that at fourteen, Mitchell was old enough to supervise Shayla alone during daytime hours that since he now worked nearby, he could always come home if needed. He also reminded them that with the sharp reduction in their income they couldn’t afford another mouth to feed, anyway. Reuben expressed surprise that his sisters didn’t show more consideration, to which Camille could only shrug.

  “Well, maybe you can stay with your father and stepmother in Inwood,” he suggested.

  “Oh, I don’t want to do that, either. That would put us in a different borough.” Camille didn’t have to ask why they couldn’t all stay together. No one they knew had an extra bedroom. She doubted that anyone even had a sofa bed.

  “You’ll have to stay someplace, Camille.”

  “Yes, I know. But we seem to be taking a lot for granted. What if no one wants us to stay with them? It’s a lot to ask of a person, Reuben. To have two people descend on you for an unknown length of time. It’s a disruption, no matter how hard we’ll try not to get in the way. Who know
s how long it will be before we can afford a place of our own. You don’t even have a job!”

  “I know that once I get to New York I’ll be working soon. I’ll contact the store’s human resources department. If anything, they’ll hire me. I’m sure there’s a department manager job opening somewhere. Once we’re living in the city again I won’t have any restrictions. I can travel to Westchester or Long Island if I need to. And I won’t believe for one minute that there’s even a possibility of our families telling us we can’t stay with them. They know we have no place else to go.”

  “I hate the idea of our being separated,” she said. She knew she sounded whiny, but she couldn’t help it. She hated the thought of her family not living together under the same roof. How had Douglas and Tanisha Cole managed? she wondered. Did they have the same feeling of fear and dread she was experiencing right now? What was it that Mitchell had said? “They didn’t even know where they would sleep.”

  The thought of the Cole family made her remember something. “Reuben, two years ago, when you first lost your job, I promised Mitchell that he would always have a roof over his head, that you and I would take care of him. Douglas and Tanisha had just lost their house, and he was so upset that his friend Alex had to leave Arlington Acres. Now I feel like I’ve broken a promise to him. I’ve never done that before.”

  “You haven’t broken your promise. He’ll still have a roof over his head, and he’ll be taken care of. He won’t be going around hungry and sleeping on park benches.” She flashed him a “that’s horseshit” look, and he went on. “Mitchell isn’t a little kid anymore, Camille. He’s old enough to know what it means to lose a job. He knows how hard we tried to stay afloat. A few weeks ago he even asked me if he could get a job this summer.”

  Her lower lip dropped. “You didn’t tell me that!”

  “I didn’t want you to know. I knew his reason for asking. He knew I wasn’t making enough money to take care of us. My fourteen-year-old son wanted to get a job and help out. How do you think that made me feel?” Reuben’s eyes narrowed, like he was squinting in the sun, but Camille knew he was fighting back tears.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

  “I’m dreading having to tell Mitchell and Shayla that we have to leave here.” He bowed his head. “I’m sorry, Camille. I kept hoping that our luck would change. I’ve even been buying lottery tickets. Don’t panic, I only get one ticket per drawing.”

  “Reuben, someone already died and left us money. I think we’ve already had our share of luck,” she said coldly.

  “I know. But I have to hope. Right now it’s all I have.”

  “I don’t think we should tell the kids until we have a plan in place about where we’ll be staying. It’ll be less frightening for them that way than saying ‘We don’t know’ when they ask where we’re going. Because you know they’ll ask. Besides, they’ll be starting school next week, and that’s stressful enough by itself.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine.” He walked over to the window and went outside on the deck, his hands resting on the railing as he stood in front of it.

  She watched him for a minute, then followed him outside. “What’s on your mind?”

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Everything I ever dreamed of. A house on the lake. This may sound silly, but I figured we’d be here until we retired. I even imagined Shayla getting married here, provided she didn’t invite too many people. I saw it all in my head. I was going to put up a little gazebo for the ceremony, have cloth-covered tables flanking a dance floor . . . It was going to be beautiful.” He added a muttered, “Silly, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s not silly, Reuben. I had the same thought.”

  “I love this house. Before I lost my job I felt like a king in a castle. Even with all the hassle of commuting, it all seemed worth it when you and I got in that tub for a soak and turned on the Jacuzzi jets. I hate like hell to leave it to go sleep on somebody’s couch.”

  “I know.” Camille looked out at the scene. One of the home owners was out on the lake in a canoe with his two children wearing life jackets. It seemed almost criminal to think about having to pack up and leave on this beautiful summer day.

  Her shoulders twitched at the sound of a sob. She quickly realized it was coming from Reuben. She hastily took his arm and steered him toward the house. This was no place to break down. You never knew who might be lurking around the corner, and the whole neighborhood didn’t need to know their problems. Bad enough that they’d all know soon enough. “Come on inside,” she coaxed.

  “I’m sorry, Camille. I’m so sorry I couldn’t pull it off. I guess you hitched your wagon to a loser when you married me.”

  His words pulled at her heartstrings. She forgot about her resentment and anger, all the feelings of he-should-have-done-this or he-shouldn’t-have-done-that she still sometimes harbored, in spite of her efforts to be more supportive of him in recent months. “Reuben, I won’t have you thinking that,” she said sternly. “It’s not true. You’re not a loser. You’ve had bad luck, that’s all. Thousands of people lose their jobs every week. A lot of them lose their homes. The insurance companies don’t even offer job-loss mortgage-protection insurance anymore because they had to pay out too much money, remember?”

  He looked at her sadly. “My God, Camille, I wish there was one good thing that we can say came out of this, but I don’t see it. Where the hell is our silver lining?”

  She went into his arms. She thought about how annoyed she’d been that she had to rise in the middle of the night while he got to sleep, about all those months when she’d held him personally responsible for their predicament, and she suddenly knew what was most important: Reuben had stuck it out. He hadn’t been like Milo Young, walking out on Dawn and Zach. Heaven knows he could have, and he threatened to after that huge fight they had had the first time she and Dawn had touched up each other’s hair and she’d made those smart-ass remarks to deliberately embarrass him. She’d been foolish enough not to care, but now she knew she’d be lost without him.

  “Maybe it’s in the fact that we still love each other,” Camille said, “that we’re still committed to each other. You and our children are what I live for. I’ll do whatever I need to so we can all live together under one roof again.”

  His voice broke as he said, “I’m sorry, Camille.”

  She held him tightly, her own tears falling. “Reuben. We won’t go hungry. We won’t be homeless. It’s not your fault. This type of thing happens to people every day. We’ll be all right. I’d rather lose the house than lose you or the children.”

  He buried his face in the nook where her neck met her shoulder. “I love you, Camille.”

  Chapter 46

  The Youngs

  September 2005

  Dawn happily snatched up the hand-addressed envelope in her mailbox. Milo had been sending her $350 twice a month. She wished he could send more, but at least she was getting by. Zach was old enough to stay at home alone over summer vacation, so she didn’t have to pay Destiny King to keep an eye on him. She’d enrolled in consumer credit counseling through the credit union here in Pennsylvania, keeping one credit card for emergencies and cutting up all the rest. She couldn’t afford to keep them. Banks and even department stores had started charging thirty to forty dollars if payments were received even one day late, and she couldn’t always pay them on time.

  She continued to honor her credit-counseling agreement, which made for dramatically lower payments, and kept up with her utility bills. She paid what she could toward the mortgage but usually had caught up within thirty days. Still, she couldn’t help wondering how Camille and Reuben managed to hold on to their house all this time.

  Once inside the house she opened the envelope from Milo. He usually sent postal money orders so the funds would be available right away. She’d deposit it in her account tomorrow.

  She took a deposit slip and began filling it out so it could get in and out of the bank quickly. She glanced at the mon
ey order to confirm the amount. Wouldn’t it be nice if Milo sent more, like four hundred?

  It came as a heart-stopping shock to see that the money order was only for two hundred dollars. She stared at the figure in disbelief. “What the hell . . . ?” Milo hadn’t said a word about sending less this time.

  She dialed his cell phone. “Milo, what’s going on?” she asked without preamble. “You only sent me $200 instead of $350.”

  “I’m sorry, Dawn. I’m trying to save for a deposit on an apartment. I can’t stay here forever, and it’s already been four months. It’s starting to become really trying for Donald and Carmen to have me underfoot, and I’m sure that even Shawn is wondering how long I’ll be sleeping in his room.”

  “Milo, I was making it with the money you sent. Barely, but I was making it. If you cut me down to $200 a month I can’t make it. What am I supposed to do?” she asked, her voice shrill.

  “Dawn, I’m doing the best I can. I’m paying Donald and Carmen for their inconvenience, and I’ve got some bills I take care of, like our cell phones and my Visa.”

  “I’ve got the bulk of the cards here, Milo, and you know it!” But even as Dawn said the words she knew he had a point. He couldn’t reside with the Triggs family permanently, like an adopted child, and four months was an awfully long visit.

  Still, he was the one who had decided to leave. She hadn’t thrown him out. She hadn’t done anything except try to support him emotionally. Look at how badly Camille Curry treated Reuben as his period of underemployment stretched into years. If anything, she had expected Reuben to be the one to walk out, not her own husband.

  Tears filled her eyes. How would she make up for this shortfall? She’d already cut expenses to the bone to come up with extra cash. She turned the water heater off at night, washed the dishes in the kitchen sink instead of running the dishwasher, and did all the wash in cold water.