Only three weeks had passed since I laid my mother to rest, and my brother had already summoned an appraiser for the house.
In the courtyard of the family home in Sighet, the lateseason apples dropped one by one, thudding against the earth with a muffled sound. The housea wornout 1970s building with two rooms and a wooden verandaseemed to have shrunk ever since we were children. Yet the almost1,000squaremeter plot had suddenly become the most valuable bargaining chip between me and my brother, Mihai.
Lets be practical, Andreea, he had said on the phone the day before. Youre in Cluj, Im in Bucharest. Neither of us can move here. Is it worth keeping this empty house? Wed be better off selling it and splitting the money.
His logic was flawless, cold and efficient, just like Mihai had always been. Selling appeared to be the rational answer. But how could you attach a price tag to the place where you learned to walk, where you planted your first tree, where your parents spent an entire lifetime?
I was sitting at the kitchen table, its surface covered with a faded floral tablecloth, leafing through an old photo album. My father, who had been gone for five years, smiled beneath his bushy mustache in a picture from the summer of 89. Beside him, Mom held a basket of plums and looked younger than I had ever seen her.
The phone buzzedit was Mihai.
Ive spoken to a realestate agent. He says we could ask 75,000 for the house and land. Thats a solid figure, Andreea. Imagine what half of that could do for you.
I need to think about it, Mihai. It isnt an easy decision for me.
Whats there to think about? The house sits empty and is deteriorating. Neither of us has the time to look after it. Leaving it like this is irresponsible.
He was right, of course. My life was in Cluj, with my husband, children, and corporate job. I only came to Sighet two or three times a year, and in recent years only to tend to Mom when illness confined her to bed. Mihai visited even less often; his bustling life as a successful lawyer in Bucharest always took priority.
That evening I lit the terracotta stove and began sorting through Moms belongings. Her simple clothes, neatly folded in the wardrobe. The porcelain tea set, reserved for special occasions. A stack of handwritten recipes stored in an old biscuit tin. Each item seemed to exhale her presence.
Amid the things I uncovered a yellowed envelope. Inside lay the houses title deed and an unfinished letter addressed To My Children. Moms tidy, careful script filled a page:
Dear children, when you read this I will probably be gone. This house has been my life and your fathers. Its where we raised you, where we laughed and wept, where we grew old. It was never grand or lavish, but it was full of love. I know your lives are far away now and this house may seem just a burden. But before you make any decision, remember
The letter stopped abruptly, as if Mom had run out of words or time.
The next morning Mihai arrived in his new car, parking it in front of the gate. I watched him from the doorway, realizing how out of place he seemed here. His expensive suit clashed with the humble yard where we had run barefoot as children.
Ive brought the evaluators contract, he said, skipping the usual greeting.
I handed him the letter I had found the night before, saying nothing. He read it in silence; his expression shifted subtly.
Its unfinished, he remarked.
Like our conversation about what to do with the house.
I stepped out into the yard, among the fallen apples and the vegetable rows Mom had tended up until her last month. The small orchard behind the house, where Dad had built a swing for us, was now overgrown.
Do you remember when we argued on the swing and both fell, breaking my arm? I asked.
A brief smile crossed his face. And Dad rushed us to the hospital on his bike, you in his arms and me pedaling behind, crying louder than you.
Suddenly we were both laughing, recalling childhood episodes we had long forgotten: the surprise party for Dads 50th birthday when the cake slipped off the table, the first time Mihai got drunk on Dads homemade plum brandy, winter evenings when the four of us gathered around the stove.
Only those who have lived such moments in Romanian families truly grasp the emotional weight a parental home carries and how painful it is to let it go, especially when siblings cant find common ground.
After a few hours of reminiscences, Mihai stood up and looked around as if seeing the house for the first time.
What if we dont sell it? he blurted.
I stared at him, surprised. But you said its irresponsible to keep it.
Yes, if we let it decay. But what if we renovated it? It could become a place where we bring our kids for holidays, a spot to meet during celebrationsa home that stays in the family.
His suggestion caught me off guard. The pragmatic Mihai proposing to keep the house out of sentiment?
That would mean money, time, effort, I pointed out.
We both have resources. Maybe its time to invest a little in our roots, not just in our childrens futures.
In the months that followed we began renovating the parental house. We preserved the original structure, the terracotta stove, the wooden beam Dad used to measure our height year after year. We modernized the kitchen and bathroom, added central heating, and turned the attic into two childrens rooms.
By Christmas we were all thereMihai with his wife and son, me with my husband and daughters. We decorated the frontyard fir as we had as kids and baked cozonac using Moms recipe.
While the children played in the snow, Mihai and I sat on the houses porch, watching the familiar landscape of the town.
Do you think we made the right choice? he asked.
I looked toward the kitchen window, where silhouettes of our families prepared the Christmas dinner, and at our kids building a snowman right where we had built one thirty years earlier.
Isnt this one of the greatest losses of modern Romanian society? The parental home, once the nucleus of extended families gathering generations around one table, now reduced to a mere realestate asset, traded without regard for its emotional value.
Im sure Mom would have finished her letter by saying exactly thisthat the true inheritance isnt the houses price, but the memories and bonds we create here.
Mihai nodded, raising his mug of mulled wine. To the family home, he said. And to everyone who understands that some things cant be measured in money.
It’s been just three weeks since we buried Mum, and my brother has already called in the valuer for the house.
