Tom Barrett would have to run his strict lending formulas on our modest salaries.

He would look at the seventy-one thousand four hundred dollars and work out our absolute maximum loan.

Luke closed the laptop, and the screen clicked shut in the quiet room.

He said seventy-one thousand wouldn’t even cover a down payment against a corporate buyer.

I stared at the black lid of the computer.

The last Saturday in March was exactly nine days away.

I looked at the seventy-one-thousand-dollar balance written on my legal pad, knowing it wasn’t nearly enough.