Part 2
For the next two years, deposits appeared whenever he could spare them: four hundred dollars, another eight hundred, a larger amount after a property deal closed. He showed me each one. He never made the account a reward for grades or good behavior.
Around the same time, he began explaining a commercial property downtown. He’d bought his first interest in it in 1999, before Vivian, when the surrounding blocks were still mostly warehouses and small repair shops. Over time, he acquired the remaining interests.
Six floors held offices above a plain entrance. The elevator needed patience, the windows needed cleaning, and the tenants needed somebody who answered when they called. Dad liked buildings where the work was obvious and the asking price reflected it.
“When you’re older, you’ll be handling that place,” he told me one afternoon.
I thought he meant I’d help with the accounts.
On my eighteenth birthday, he took me through the first ownership transfer. He made me read every page before signing. The gift was an interest in the property, legally completed and recorded, with the tax paperwork prepared by his attorney.
That fall, I loaded two suitcases into the used sedan he’d helped me purchase and left for a university about four hours east. Vivian waved through the kitchen window. Natalie, eight by then, was watching television and didn’t get up.
I checked the oil before leaving, the way Dad had taught me, and drove away.
My apartment near campus had one narrow window and a radiator that made a knocking sound after midnight. The kitchenette could hold a drying rack or a cutting board, but not both. I bought a secondhand coffee maker for nine dollars and learned to drink what came out of it.
I liked deciding where my own cup would go.
Every Sunday, Dad called at nine, usually while Vivian was still asleep. I’d sit on the edge of the bed with the latest figures open on my laptop. Twenty minutes was about right for us.
He asked whether I’d checked a distribution. I asked about a lease renewal. We discussed the market, the next contribution, whether a repair should come from operating cash or the reserve.
He didn’t ask many questions about classes. I didn’t ask him to explain why he’d let my room be taken.
During my first year away, I came home and found a yoga mat where my bed had stood in the little room beside the garage. A diffuser sat on the window ledge, and a wall speaker played water sounds. Vivian said it was wonderful finally to have space to stretch.
The next year, the garage became a craft room for Natalie. Dad’s tools went into a shed. By my third year, even the remaining hallway photographs had been replaced.
I went through the downstairs rooms once, looking for a picture of myself. I didn’t find one.
Vivian asked whether I’d wash the dishes and stay for dinner. She never asked what I intended to do with my degree, or later, what my work involved.
She inspected my sensible shoes and old car with the mild concern people reserve for someone they expect will always struggle. I never corrected her.
At twenty-two, I graduated with highest honors in accounting, with a concentration in forensic work. The investment account held sixty-two thousand dollars. My share of the downtown property was already substantial, though Dad was still completing the transfers.
I kept the graduation documents in one folder and the property documents in another. When Dad called, he asked me to check the name on my first professional paycheck.
“Make sure they spelled Mercer right,” he said.
That was his congratulations.
The transfers continued, each one documented in records I could follow from year to year. At twenty-eight, I became the building’s sole owner.
By then, the streets around it had changed. Empty workshops had become restaurants and offices. The city repaired sidewalks, new tenants wanted larger suites, and the rents on expiring leases no longer resembled the rents Dad had first negotiated.
He’d expected improvement. He hadn’t expected all of it.
I set aside money for repairs and reserves, and invested what remained. My salary added another steady contribution. Dad still checked that I understood the maintenance costs as well as the profits.
I wore the same coat to Wednesday dinner season after season.
In the spring I turned thirty-two, Dad was diagnosed with severe cardiomyopathy. His doctor explained that his heart wasn’t pumping well enough. The treatment plan called for medication, regular checks, and rest.
Vivian began using the last word to answer almost every request I made.
“He’s resting,” she said when I called about a visit.
Another time, she told me he’d asked not to see anyone. On a third call, she said she’d explain my concern to the doctor herself.
For the next two years, visits became things she could grant, shorten, or cancel. Some Wednesdays I still sat at the table. Others, she phoned while I was driving and told me to turn around.
I tried not to argue where Dad could hear. I was afraid that every dispute would become another reason to keep me out.
Late in August, six weeks before he died, I went without arranging it first. Vivian came onto the porch and pulled the door almost closed behind her.
“You can’t keep doing this, Elise. He needs a predictable day.”
“I just want ten minutes.”
She adjusted the cardigan over her shoulders.
“You’re making it harder for him. Please go.”
Through the kitchen window, I saw Dad at the table. He raised his hand, fingers spread, and kept it against the light. I looked back twice while walking to my car. His hand remained up until I got behind the wheel.
That night, I called Aunt Judith.
She was Dad’s younger sister, seventy years old, with neatly kept records and little patience for an explanation that didn’t hold together. Dad hadn’t asked her to intervene, and for years she’d respected that.
“She’s been telling people you’re wrapped up in your career,” Judith said. “The Wilcoxes heard at church that you haven’t bothered to call.”
I looked at the call log on my phone.
“Fourteen times this month.”
“I believe you. There’s something else you need to know. Thomas signed a financial power of attorney on Tuesday. She’s handling the household account for him now.”
I asked whether Dad understood what he’d signed. Judith said he did; he was tired and needed help with bills. That wasn’t what frightened me.
Vivian already controlled the front door, the telephone, and the explanation the family received. Now she had a document that made her control look practical, even necessary.
Three weeks after that conversation, he had a second stroke. Vivian organized meals, hospital visits, and rides for the relatives who couldn’t drive. She called cousins and neighbors and the church office.
My phone stayed silent until a nurse found the emergency-contact number Dad had put in his chart years earlier. I was in a conference room reviewing a client’s records when it rang. I took the call in the corridor. “Is this Elise Mercer?” she asked. “We have your father here…”
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