A Priceless Long, Dirt Road

This is a continuation of finding our home. You can read part I here.

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Well.

Let’s just say I had to sit with my husband’s decision for a while. A while being maybe a whole two weeks. The whole wrestling thing. What was he thinking? Why? What about (all the fill in the blanks)? Where are we going to live? And what am I supposed to do with these paper thin tops now?

If you’ve been married more than ten minutes, you know the struggle. But if you’ve been a born again Christian for more than ten minutes, you also know you’re the biggest sinner in the house, so grace abounds. Back to packing and praying.

We expanded our search, up to an hour’s commute. And downsized our wish list (maybe we don’t need land, or chickens, or that quiet of a neighborhood…).

One Friday afternoon, half a dozen ladies and I were around the table for study and fellowship when one of them ventured to offer an alternative idea for housing. A friend of hers was selling a home of 34 years, and wanted to do so outside of the market. As she described the house and surroundings, I nodded politely while dollar signs kept blooming all in my mind. At the end, she stretched out a piece of paper with her friend’s name and phone number and told me to call her. Ah. Well. Yes, of course. Of course. Why not.

I why-notted for almost a week. I knew I couldn’t go an entire week, because said table-friend would ask if I had called said house-friend once Friday rolled around again. But I kept imagining the opening: Hello, my name is Keri Mae and I heard you were selling a house. Hello, I’m a friend of a friend and might you have a house for me to look at? Hello, I already know I can’t afford your house, ha ha ha, but we should meet anyhow because you told your friend who told me and she told me to call you so here I am and maybe we could just have tea?

Turns out she had been expecting my call.

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I drove down the gravel road avoiding the shallow potholes. Evergreens, maple trees, and blackberry bushes hugged the narrow lane. One of the things I missed most about the big house wasn’t the house itself; it was the long drive on the gravel road to get there. The slowing down. The crunch under the tires. The release of faster-better. The late Paul Harvey understood how beautiful a dirt road is, and I couldn’t agree more.

I drove through the posts at the end of the road and circled around the pasture. One of the posts listed and the fence wire was sagging, but the land it encircled was grassy, rolling, and punctuated with majestic evergreens and willowy bayberry trees. Several fruit trees lined the edges, and on the other side of my drive a hedgerow of wild roses, salal and decidious trees made a lovely boundary. I wondered where the house was.

I made it halfway around the pasture and the little lane split. I could now see the house, low and brown, set way back on the left, so I made my way now onto a split gravel road with a grassy strip down the middle. The seller opened the slider into the kitchen and welcomed me as if I were a friend already. She was a head shorter than I was, slightly stooped, with a crop of short gray hair. She had a big smile and bright eyes.

“Do you want to see the house first or the land first?”

I quickly considered what might be less insulting to ask for first, but ended up asking for what I cared about most. A house I could fix. Land just was.

“Let’s see the land.”

She seemed real pleased with that answer, and she took me all around the property, pointing out the various areas she had tended. I recognized and pointed out many plants: Japanese snowball, dogwood, huckleberry. Peonies, butterfly hydrangea, hawthorn, and clematis. Beauty bush, stonecrop, and boxleaf. Every time I pointed something out or asked what something was, she seemed satisfied. Although much of it was overgrown, or lacking in nutrients, I appreciated the value of the time, work and money she had spent. At 84, she had been unable to keep up with it all, especially with her husband declining. She wanted the right family for her home, outbuildings, and land.

The home was a simple structure. All cedar walls and ceilings, maple hardwood and brick floors. Four woodstoves, four bedrooms, a real working kitchen (I could imagine cutting apart a fresh chicken right there on the island underneath the hanging pot rack). Seven skylights, vaulted ceilings everywhere, and—perhaps most important—room for our extra large, extra wide dining room table. I walked around like I was in a small castle, awed by the structure and faint smell, even after decades, of cedar.

“Well? What do you think? Do you like it?” This woman was mentally sharp and not in the habit of beating around the bush.

“Well, sure, it is gorgeous! And I can tell you and your husband stewarded the outside well when you were able. Why are you selling it? What about your kids?”

And off we went, discussing this and that, and never getting around to the asking price I didn’t want to know. Before I knew it, we had planned to bring my husband over the very next day.

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I laughed when I drove him down the driveway. “I like it already,” he said, sharing my love for the slowest of roads.

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The seller was delighted to meet him, and she was able to answer all of the questions my husband asked, whether electrical, septic, or about the well. She was forthright about repairs that needed to be made, and places where upkeep had been delayed. She seemed contented with his questions, and even more so that he had knowledge of what needed to be done.

We parted for the day, still unaware of an asking price. Still not really wanting to know.

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That evening, Tom and I crafted a letter to the seller. She didn’t use email so it would have to be mailed the next day. We shared a bit about our family and our interest in her home and property. Both of us knew we were probably in over our head with what the property was worth, but seeing how we had no idea what she was asking, we decided we had nothing to lose and to offer what we could afford.

The next morning, I saw her voicemail message. She shared her happiness in meeting us. And, by the way, she laughed, “We never talked price!” So she left what she and her family were hoping to sell it all for, and though I wasn’t surprised, my heart still sunk. It was far, far more than we could afford. It may as well have been a million dollars.

I remembering sighing and putting down the phone. Did I mention I wasn’t surprised?

It took me two days to call her back.