Card to Folks

Every year, she sent her parents a joint birthday card, even though her mother was born in May and her father was born in September. Ginger took pictures of her properties and made a collage, then wrote a little update. She mentioned how much she paid for each property and what renovations she made to each. Then she wrote out the birthday poem that her father started when she was little and through the years became a family tradition:

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
You're getting older.
And I am, too.

When her parents sent her a birthday card, they wrote out the same poem. Every time Ginger wrote it out, she missed them terribly.

After years of buying and fixing up properties all around the lower part of the state, her father decided he was tired of catering to the upper middle class. He was tired of using his skills solely for profit. Her mother agreed. They decided that instead of retiring, they'd try pioneer life. They sold off most of their properties except the larger units, and they let a management company take care of those. Ginger was able to purchase the house she grew up in, which she was slowly renovating. It was taking her more time than any other house or apartment she'd ever worked on. Some days she wanted to gut it and other days she wanted to preserve it.

"Burn it," her father advised from the two room cabin he shared with her mother in the Alaskan wilderness. It became his salutation, his sign off, before he signed his letters to his daughter. Instead of "Sincerely," he wrote, "Burn it." And he always meant the family home.

It wasn't fancy. It was a simple three bedroom ranch with a few mid-century modern touches, although not enough to entice an enthusiast. The yard was small. The back steps were crumbling. There was water damage in the garage. The basement was always damp. But every time Ginger walked into the kitchen, she thought of the first time she ripped up carpet, the first time she measured for appliances, and the first time she fitted face plates on the light switches and electrical outlets. She wasn't quite ten years old.

"You're getting pretty good at that," her father said as she turned the tiny screwdriver to secure the tiny screw which held the plate in place.

"By the time we're done here," her mother said, "she'll be a master at it."

The face plates were plastic numbers made to look like paneling or wood. By the time her parents moved far away, the face plates were outdated. They were old. And Ginger was getting older, too.

But she didn't think that was a good reason to demolish the dwelling. Even if, as her mother said, "It's sometimes easier to start from scratch."

Instead, she let the house sit and wait for her to decide what to do.