3 Checks Cut

I was at the car dealership last week getting ready to pay for some maintenance work when I heard a chirping sound inside my purse. Someone had sent me a text message. I sighed and dug through all the flotsam and jetsam in my bag, looking for my cell phone. I hate texting and actively discourage people from doing it to me. Help a sister out. Send me an email with some punctuation and a complete sentence or two.

 

Anyway, I found my phone, flipped it open and looked at the message. It read, “3 checks cut.” My mouth dropped open and I am pretty sure my hair stood on end for a few seconds. The text was from Jessica, my private adjuster, and she was telling me that the insurance company had approved the claims we had submitted to build a new house, replace everything that was destroyed in the fire and get reimbursed for all of my lost artwork. Still standing in the middle of the dealership showroom, I called Jessica’s cell phone. She answered, sounding like Louis Armstrong.

 

“You sound like Louis Armstrong,” I said.

 

“I hab a really, really bab code,” she answered. “That’s why I sent a text.” Then she let loose a sneeze that almost blew my phone out of my hand. “Sorry,” she said. “Bab code.”

 

Between sneezes and some really gross coughs, Jessica managed to tell me that my insurance company had OK’d the full amount of compensation we had requested.  Jessica, who has been negotiating on my behalf with the insurance company, had decided to push them to approve the entire sum of money in one fell swoop, rather than dole out payments incrementally.  She had swung for the fence and it had worked. The checks were, literally, in the mail.  We did some virtual high-fives together and I told her once again what a total badass she is. We agreed to talk in a few days when she felt better, then verbally high-fived again before hanging up. After which I’m sure she immediately passed out on her sofa next to a mountain of used Kleenex.

 

I paid the bill for my car and when they brought it out to me I jumped into the driver’s seat, sat there for a moment, and then leaned my head against the steering wheel and started to cry.  

 

A few employees saw me but they were totally unfazed. It’s a BMW dealership after all and I’m sure they’re used to people weeping uncontrollably after forking over several hundred dollars for an oil change and maybe a few air filters.

 

It’s kind of hard to explain but it just isn’t possible for me to be immediately happy at moments like that, even though it seems like I should. I can tell that I disappoint people with my response sometimes, but honestly my first reaction isn’t usually joy. It’s a feeling of relief. Excruciating relief, actually. It hurts.

 

That’s because at this point in the story I’m not fully convinced I’m going to bounce back 100% from the fire. Ever. My neighbor Alice and I – our houses burned down together -- have talked about it and she’s of the same mind. Our accounting varies slightly but we’ve both run the numbers many times and just can’t make them work.  Alice is using basic addition: She is 70 years old, and so unless she lives to be The Oldest Living Woman In The History Of Planet Earth, by her calculations there just isn’t enough time to rebuild the life she knew.

 

I’m playing the percentages. I clearly remember watching my house burn down and thinking, “Girlfriend, you may not come back all the way from this one.” As someone who always comes back 100%, I found this thought truly frightening.  Eight months later, I am still down several percentage points. Nothing dramatic – we are not talking emotional recession here – but having clearly lost some of my mojo I am very focused on ways to gain it back and incredibly anxious about anything that might lower my numbers even more. Getting into an extended knock-down-drag-out with the insurance company would do just that. Getting a settlement that is insufficient to rebuild my house and my life would also do that.  And so when Jessica tells me that the insurance company, while agonizingly slow, was also totally honorable, I can’t immediately get past the nearly paralyzing sense of relief that I am not going to lose yet another piece of myself.

 

On one level, Alice and I are quite aware that people are subjected to infinitely worse situations than ours all the time and that two or three years from now we’ll look back on this period as basically just a dark phase. We have everything in our favor – friends, family, financial stability and luck – to create something good from this. However, it is now and not three years from now. The fire still informs a lot of our day-to-day existence and so we’re not quite there yet. We’re still pretty stressed out.

 

But like I said, the sense of relief is the immediate emotion. Happiness follows eventually. I deposited the checks into a savings account a few days ago and when I looked at the receipt I saw that there is indeed enough to build a new house. Big smile.

Comments

[Anne Toth]

My question is - was there enough money to clad you house in Zen Weave, top to bottom? Silly question actually since I don't think there is enough money in the world for that! Ann Sacks tile plays prominently in my house fantasies. ;-)