I finished signing every closing document before turning my phone over again. Colleen had sent three more messages. She wanted to know what I did for a living now, how much the house cost, and whether the photographs she had seen online were really mine. Not once did she ask how I had been during the four years we had not spoken. Somehow, that hurt less than it once would have.
The $6,000 my mother refused had forced me to find another way. I downsized my apartment, worked nights, and found two small investors willing to take a chance on the business plan my own mother had dismissed. That company eventually became profitable enough for me to buy out those investors, hire twelve employees, and purchase the land beneath the house where I was now standing.
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