Ghosts

Would you like a Curtsey or a Bow?

"Knock knock!" I heard Joseph shout throughout the house as he walked through the door.

"It's not knocking if you come in." I whispered to myself before he entered the kitchen where I was reviewing the paperwork he had left me.

Within seconds the balding man who was my father's lawyer sauntered into the room with a woman who looked to be in her late thirties and a man who reminded me of an older Alex Baldwin. The woman wore typical "working clothes"— black pencil skirt and a long sleeved, bright pink dress shirt with ruffles all in line with the buttons. She had black tights and black shoes on and looked unhealthily skinny. Basically, she looked like businesswoman Barbie.

"Hello Francine, my name is Meredith Solmers. I'm the realtor." She said with an ear to ear smile and stuck her hand out to me after sticking her pen through her tight, blonde bun. Little did she know that she missed a large piece of hair on the bottom towards her neck.

"Always remember to check yourself from the back, too, Frankie. I mean it. Just because you can't see the back doesn't mean others can't either. The back is the most important."

I recalled my mother saying that to me, and I heard her exact words whispered to me in my ear. Tucking my hair behind my ear, slightly brushing it, I responded.

"Francesca, my name is Francesca. Hi, it's nice to meet you." I put on my most pleasant face trying to focus on looking kind rather than focusing on the pink lipstick on Meredith's front teeth. I accepted her bony hand shaking it for a little time as possible.

"Francesca, where is Eli?"

My uncle. I wasn't sure how I would tell him that he hadn't showed up yet or would not be showing up at all.

"Not here, yet."

"Well, did you tell him when we were all going to be here?"

"Of course, he said he would try his best." His best obviously wasn't good enough.

He gave me a look, a look not of acceptance or even annoyance, but a slight tinge of anger and a non-surprised expression. To my thanks, the peppy realtor broke the silence.

"So I will try to fill you in with all of the information we have so far. First, we need to have Darren here inspect the house just to make sure you don't have any mold or mice or explosives we don't know about, right?" She said in and joking, bubbly voice while placing her hand on my shoulder and letting out a quite irritable, hardy laugh. My eyes widened both in shock of her volume and partially fear. Joseph laughed also as Darren kept his straight poker face. I let out a polite chuckle, as painful as it was.

"Anyways, we are going to go around the house to check it out, alright?" Meredith asked with a tight closed mouth smile and high eyebrows.

I gave her nothing but a nod and followed along as the scanned the house. We went from room to room, upstairs, downstairs, all around until finally Meredith was pleased.

"Okay honey, here is the deal." Uh oh. "It seems that we do have work to do with this house, and in order to get better deal we have to spend quite a bit. We have lots of mold throughout the house, in walls, ceilings, floors. But the mold is only the beginning of the problem. You have several pipe issues, too. Some just too clogged to have anything flowing, which we can fix easily but also many broken as a result to freezing of them in the winter so we might as well replace it all just to be safe. And now the electricity is causing many fire hazards because of the lack of—"

I didn't even understand what she was saying. I understood that the house wasn't cared for as much as it needed. It has been over a year and a half since we even considered keeping up with all of this. After my dad gave up on it all and let it all go to shit, I tried to keep up, but it's hard keeping up with it all.