For those of you lucky enough to be current on your mortgage, you might not know that you have to fall four payments behind before the mortgage holder can start cooking up a foreclosure. But when you get two months behind, they turn on the burners.
The phone calls start. The caller is always someone different, someone I picture sitting in a cubicle with half-walls somewhere, headset phone in place, playing Solitaire as they talk to me.
"Do you know that you are two payments behind on your mortgage?" they ask. "When can we expect payment?"
I stammer out a reply and promise to pay online within a few days.
"All right," they say, "I'll note that in your file." I assume they do.
And we make a payment, just one, because that's all we have. This lets us breathe until we are once again two months behind.
"Do you know you are two payments behind...? Is there a reason....? When can we expect payment...?"
Caller ID is a wondrous thing. I start to duck the calls. And if I happen to answer accidentally, I can tell right away who it is, because they always mispronounce my partner's last name, with a long "e" instead of a short one ("keen" instead of "ken," although that's not her last name, but it's the same sound that is mispronounced).
If I don't answer the phone, I think, somewhat magically, I don't have to tell my partner they called. And if they didn't call, then things are just fine.
And I check the job postings again, and answer a few ads, sending a resume that I hope cleverly disguises how old I am. I try not to count up the number of highly skilled people I know who are unemployed...three...four...five...just in my little circle here in Olywa.
I try not to think about my dear, dear friend in Massachusetts who is about to lose her condo, whose 19-year relationship is ruined because of it, who is out of work herself.
I try not to think about the wonderful family whose child plays baseball with mine, who can't afford the house they built for themselves, who has been trying to get their loan modified for nearly a year.
Trying not to think unfortunately just makes me think.
Oh dear God. I don't know if I can keep reading this. Can you take in boarders? A friend of mine in Wellesley, in the same boat, is doing that. First they didn't pay two months and the bank agreed to put those two months at the back end of their loan. That bought them two months. Then they were advised to stop paying again because the next step would be for the bank to renegotiate. They're waiting to see if, indeed, that is what will happen.
ReplyDeleteHah! Their bank sounds like a dreamboat! Don't worry, we are in good states of mind about it all.
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