The day the RLA and I viewed this house, it was raining. The glass barn doors to the pool deck were open, and the house, with its dark Dade County Pine ceiling, was as cozy as a summer camp cabin. The rain misted through the screen over the pool deck, and it was almost like it was raining inside the house.

We were thoroughly charmed, and didn't see the other things like the do-it-yourself projects that had been done poorly. We bought the house.
To this day, thirteen years later, I love this little place in the rain. I woke up this morning at six, planning on driving up to Jupiter to meet with my brother and the estate lawyer. That plan soon ended when I discovered we were in the outer squall bands from Tropical Storm Arlene.

We did a conference call instead, and I was ensconced on the sofa, coffe mug in hand, cozy little house around me.

Good thing, too, because my brother is a greedy, grabby idiot and had I not been in the zen womb of my snug little cabin, I probably would have been leaning over the lawyer's desk slapping the cowboy hat off my brother's head.

Here's the deal. I want to buy his half of the family home, so that I can live in it. He wants to sell it to me, but either wait until Mummy dies and have the house appraised then, betting on the real estate bubble still inflating, or do it now, cash in his hand and the fact that I'm only semi-employed be damned. Or, he says, if I can't scrape the bucks together, maybe we should (read "You, little sister, should") empty the house and rent it out. We could put that money aside and when Mummy dies and I'm ready to leave Miami (where I brought her to live because he couldn't be counted on to take care of her) then I can let him have all the rent as part of the payment I make to him for the house.

Heaves a sigh. Contemplates the coziness of my little house. Sips coffee. Pets dog. Waits for blood pressure to lower.

He has a wife, you know.