What was said after the page was on the table

We had already paid a booking fee on a shophouse. The ninety minutes showed the transfer costs sitting on top of that fee, which we had treated as the whole of the cash we needed. We released the unit. I wish the sitting had been the week we first called; the diary was full until the following Tuesday.

Malee asked for six months of wage slips and the booklet for the pickup. I grumbled at the list. The note, when it came, put the truck installment beside a possible housing installment, and the number was tighter than my brother-in-law’s guess. We waited eight months and bought a smaller plot in Tambon Rueso with a chanote.

My mother wanted her name on the house because the deposit was hers. Arif had us say who would pay if one wage stopped. We did not finish the argument that afternoon. We left with a page that listed three ways we might speak to the lawyer. Two weeks later we chose one, at home, with the page on the table.

The review was plainer than I expected, almost blunt. Four card balances went into one column and the housing figure in my head did not survive. I would have liked a softer first ten minutes. The column was the useful part: we closed two cards before we spoke to the bank.

I am still in the rented room behind the clinic. The note gave me a monthly amount I can save without skipping the remittance to my parents. It is a slow plan. It names a deposit I can reach in a little under two years if the clinic keeps my hours.