Chapter 3: The Daughter's Call
Nate was back on his porch with a second cup of coffee when his phone rang, and the name on the screen made him smile before he even answered. Sarah. His daughter, forty four, living in Atlanta, calling at an hour that meant she had something on her mind and had decided not to wait until it was polite.
"Hi, Dad," Sarah said, and he could hear traffic behind her, and a coffee machine, and the brisk energy she carried into every room. "Are you sitting down? I have news, and I want you to hear it from me first."
"I am sitting down," Nate said. "I am also holding coffee, so this had better be good news, or at least news that does not require me to stand up in a hurry."
Sarah laughed, but the laugh was quick, the way it got when she was nervous. "Dad, Marcus Webb called me again. The developer. He has raised his offer for the waterfront property. Six point five million dollars, Dad. Six point five. That is not a number you walk away from without thinking very hard."
"Six point five million," Nate repeated slowly. "That is a great deal of money, Sarah. What does Webb want to build there, exactly?"
"Condos, mostly," Sarah said. "Nice ones, Dad, I will give him that. And shops on the ground floor, and a hotel wing. He says the store could even stay, in a smaller space, but Dad, be honest with yourself. It would not be the store. It would be a shop inside somebody else's building."
"And what do you think I should do?" Nate asked. He already had a fair idea of the answer, but he wanted to hear it in her own words, because Sarah deserved that respect, and because she was his daughter before she was anybody's adviser.
"I think you should take it," Sarah said, and her voice softened, losing some of its briskness. "Dad, you are seventy one. You built something wonderful, and nobody can take that away from you, not even a sale. But the store takes so much out of you, and Mom is gone, and I worry about you carrying it all alone. This money would mean security. It would mean you could travel, or rest, or do anything you wanted, without worrying about roofs and payroll and boats."
"Sarah," he said gently, "I hear you, and I love you for worrying about me. You are right that I am not as young as I was. But I am not ready to decide this on a phone call, and I am not ready to decide it because a number is large. A large number is still only a number. It does not tell me what happens to the people."
"Maybe," Nate said. "Or maybe the store is worth more than the land it sits on, because of what it means to this city. I do not know yet, Sarah. That is the honest truth. I do not know, and I will not pretend otherwise just to make a hard conversation easier."
"So what do you want to do?" she asked. "Just tell me the plan, Dad. I can live with a plan, even if I do not love it."
Nate smiled. "I want to visit the store first," he said. "Unannounced. No warning, no special welcome. I want to walk in like any other visitor and see the place the way a stranger would see it. Then I will decide, with clear eyes."
"Unannounced?" Sarah repeated, and now there was a smile in her voice too. "Dad, you own the place. You can walk in any time you like."
"That is exactly the point," Nate said. "Owning it means I should know what it feels like to walk in without a name attached. Margaret would have told me to do the same. She always said you learn more from one honest visit than from a hundred reports."
Sarah was quiet for a moment. "All right," she said at last. "Go and look, Dad. But promise me one thing. Promise me you will actually consider the offer afterward, with an open mind, and not just go looking for a reason to say no."
"I promise," Nate said. "I will consider it honestly, and I will call you after the visit, and we will talk about it properly, father and daughter, no rush."
"Good," Sarah said. "And Dad? Be careful in that old jacket of yours. You look like a man who wandered in off a fishing boat."
Nate laughed out loud. "That, my dear, is rather the idea. Now go and have your hot coffee before it gets cold. I love you."
"I love you too, Dad," Sarah said. "Call me right after your visit."