/My mother is going into the business of starting over/ Spent the last three weeks learning how to sell people houses they don’t need/ because their home is already made elsewhere/ Her wrists have tightened into stretched rubber bands one snip away from becoming fringe/ I sit beside her on a wooden chair and write the words of a voice too southern/ A mortgage is a promise of payment with collateral/ a Deed of Trust is the same thing, with more parties involved/ I have lent my time to my mother/ she has put it up as collateral/ she has put our house as collateral/ her savings as collateral/ she doesn’t know what she will do if she does not make this as collateral/ Everything that you see is collateral/ I am not sure I know anything about collateral/

/My mother does not understand how she cannot do the math/ when she skips the parts that /teach it/ I take a sheet of paper and do it for her/ Your seller just lost her job and is unable to stay in her home/ She put it up as collateral/ She makes the decision to sell her home and contacts you to list the property/ You are moving into the closing/ No one thought she wouldn’t get this/ why doesn’t she get this/ The contract states that the purchase price of the property is $215,000/ The seller agrees to pay a 5.5% commission and $1,500 towards closing costs for the buyer/ The seller’s payoff amount is $201,500/ She will receive a credit at closing for taxes at $543 and a credit for HOA dues at $250/ Question: Based on the information above, would the seller be required to bring money to closing/ Question: will my mother move to Arkansas/ Question: will she be able to last until she gets it right/ Question: she never said it with a hard ‘r’ she thinks that should count for something/ She wants to know why she has put in eleven good years and they don’t count for something/ One screw up shouldn’t count for everything/ right/ No/ (Subtract) Commission: $215,000 x 0.055 = $11,825/ (Subtract) Seller paid closing costs = $1,500/ (Subtract) Seller’s payoff = $201,500/ (Add) Credit for Taxes = $543/ (Add) Credit for HOA dues = $250/ Total = $215,000 – $11,825 – $1,500 – $201,500 + $543 + $250 = $968//

Anna Butcher is a college freshman and two-time Pushcart Prize Nominee from Birmingham, Alabama. One of her Pushcart nominations was for “Someone Collects My Old Self Like It’s Snakeskin” which appeared on our sibling publication . She has been published in Cadence Literary Magazine, Right Hand Pointing, Rare Byrd Review, and Body Without Organs.

Photo by roya ann miller on Unsplash

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