Part 3 — The Missing Wall
The man in the suit was a licensed attorney, and the first thing he did was hand my mother in law a clipboard with a copy of the work order. He explained, kindly and firmly, that she had signed it as the homeowner, and that she was not.
The question my husband had asked the contractors office was simple: who authorized the work, and what documents did they check? The answer was nothing. They had taken her word, her signature and our address.
The attorney said that signing a contract in someone elses name, on someone elses property, was misrepresentation. He said it plainly, without raising his voice, and she stopped talking mid sentence.
We also learned something worse. The wall she removed was load bearing. No permit had been pulled, and the beam over the opening was a temporary support that the crew had put up only because they were nervous.
A structural engineer inspected the house the next morning. He found cracks forming in the ceiling above the old wall line, and he wrote a report saying the repair needed to be done immediately and properly.
The most expensive thing about that open concept was the quiet fact that no one had asked the people who actually lived there.
The contractor was honest with us. His company voided the eighteen thousand dollar invoice to us and instead billed the person who signed it. He agreed to reconstruct the wall at his own cost, in exchange for my mother in law covering the engineers fees and permit.
She paid. She wrote the check in our kitchen with the dust still on the countertops, and she did not complain once. When she handed it over, she said, I thought I was helping. I think I just wanted to be needed.
My husband gave her a long hug. He told her that he did need her, but in the ways she was invited, with a phone call first. He gave her a small key chain, with no key on it, and said that was how it would work from now on.
The wall went back up in three weeks, properly inspected, with a new permit taped in the window. The contractors crew gave us a free paint job as an apology.
My mother in law now rings the doorbell. She even brings a casserole, and she asks, May I come in? I used to think she would never learn, but I was wrong, and it is a pleasure to be wrong.