On Friday morning, Martin Vale's lawyer sent another letter.
The escrow agent had confirmed that the investor's diligence deposit remained untouched.
It could be returned under the terms of the agreement.
That was the first good news all week.
The second was less comforting.
Cashin had promised that he could provide board authorization for the transfer within five business days.
The deadline had passed.
Martin had asked for a copy of our board resolution.
Cashin had supplied a document titled Preliminary Consent.
It contained no signatures from our directors.
It did contain my father's signature as founder.
Elena examined the document.
“This isn't a board resolution,” she said.
“No.”
“Does it use your actual letterhead?”
“No. It's a recreation.”
She studied the footer.
“The address is three years out of date.”
I remembered moving our headquarters from the building on Ash Street.
Cashin had been invited to the open house.
He had spent the reception asking investors about luxury vacation homes.
Now he was using an old address to present himself as an incoming executive.
I wanted to call him and demand an explanation.
Elena advised against it.
“Let his lawyer handle communications. We can provide the genuine governing records to the investor under a confidentiality agreement.”
We did.
Martin called afterward.
“I'm withdrawing from the transaction,” he said. “My group will preserve its documents. Our counsel will decide what further action is appropriate.”
“I'm sorry you were drawn into this,” I answered.
He sighed.
“So am I. I should have verified the title before advancing the discussions.”
We were both quiet.
Then he asked a question I did not expect.
“Would you ever consider outside investment in the real company?”
I almost laughed.
“Not during this conversation.”
“Fair enough.”
He did not press.
By lunchtime, Fallon had stopped responding to my messages.
I learned why when she showed up at my house.
She stood on the porch holding a small suitcase.
There were tears on her cheeks.
“Can I stay here?” she asked.
I looked past her toward the empty drive.
“Where's Cashin?”
“At his office. I left.”
I stepped aside.
“Come in.”
She walked into the living room and stared at the Thanksgiving table.
I had removed the extra leaves and stored the china.
The house smelled of cedar and fresh bread.
She sank onto the couch.
“I found a letter from the lender,” she whispered.
“What lender?”
“The one for the house we were trying to buy. Cashin told them a business acquisition was about to close.”
“Did they lend him money?”
“Not yet. They asked for proof of funds. He used a draft investor presentation.”
I sat across from her.
“Have you contacted them?”
“No. I called you.”
I thought about how often she had called me only when she wanted money.
This call was different.
She did not ask me to pay the deposit.
She did not ask for a job.
She looked frightened by the things she had learned.
“I signed something,” she said.
“Show me.”
She opened the suitcase and removed a folder.
Inside was a proposed purchase agreement for the house and a personal financial statement.
Her name appeared on both.
Some information on the statement did not match the bank statements she had brought.
“I didn't type those numbers,” she said.
“Do you know who did?”
“Cashin. He told me it was only an estimate.”
I put the documents down.
“You need an independent attorney immediately.”
“Can Elena help?”
“She represents me and the company. Her duties may conflict with yours.”
Fallon wiped her face.
“So you won't help.”
“I will help you find someone qualified. I won't pretend to be your lawyer.”
She stared at the folder.
“Dad said if I became an owner, I would finally be as important as you.”
I felt something loosen painfully in my chest.
“Fallon, I never asked for a competition.”
“You didn't have to. Everyone talked about your company.”
“Mom and Dad usually called it a hobby.”
“That was because they knew it mattered to you.”
I looked up.
She seemed surprised by her own words.
“Did you know they did that on purpose?” I asked.
“Sometimes.”
The answer was not an apology.
But it was honest.
We sat quietly for a while.
Then she asked if she could call a lawyer from my study.
I gave her the room and a list of local attorneys with no connection to my business.
An hour later, she emerged with an appointment for Monday.
“Can I stay until then?”
“Yes,” I said. “But we need rules.”
She stiffened.
“What rules?”
“No business documents leave my house. No access to my office accounts. If Cashin comes here, he waits outside until we've agreed to see him. And you don't speak to staff on my behalf.”
She folded her arms.
“You sound like a contract.”
“Clarity helps when trust is damaged.”
For once, she did not argue.
We ate soup at the kitchen counter.
She pushed the carrots around her bowl.
“Do you have anything sweet?”
I brought out the leftover pie from Teresa.
Fallon took a bite.
“This is good.”
“Mateo's family made it.”
“I thought you spent Thanksgiving alone after we left.”
“I did. The next day was better.”
She looked down.
“You could have told me you were lonely.”
“You were at my table, Fallon.”
She set down her fork.
I did not say more.
The words had landed.
Fallon had never discussed a budget with me before.
At Thanksgiving she had spoken as though the family name came with an unlimited line of credit.
Now she opened a notebook and showed me a list of actual expenses.
Rent.
Electricity.
Food.
Insurance.
A car payment.
Medical costs that depended on the details of her coverage.
She had written each item carefully.
There was a separate column for what she could confirm and what she still needed to check.
“I used to think you kept records because you didn't trust people,” she said.
“Sometimes records let people trust one another without guessing.”
She pointed to a blank space.
“Simone says I need to know whether my joint accounts have enough money to cover the next month.”
“That's a sensible question.”
“Cashin says looking at them means I don't believe in our marriage.”
“You are entitled to understand the accounts you use and the obligations you signed.”
Fallon put down the pen.
“He used to handle everything.”
“Did you want him to?”
“At first. It felt romantic. He always knew where we were going and what we could afford.”
“Until you found out he didn't.”
She nodded.
The baby moved beneath her sweater.
Fallon rested a hand on her stomach.
“She's been kicking all morning,” she said.
“Have you chosen a name?”
“We're considering Iris.”
I smiled.
“That's lovely.”
“Cashin says it sounds too ordinary.”
“There's nothing wrong with ordinary.”
She looked around my kitchen.
“It's easy for you to say in a house like this.”
I accepted the sting.
She was not wrong that I had financial security.
But she had never seen the years before it arrived.
I told her about my first apartment after I left home.
There was a hot plate on the counter, a narrow mattress, and a window that faced a brick wall.
At night, I could hear the dryer's motor from the business downstairs.
I ate rice and eggs for weeks while saving for a second knitting machine.
Once, the landlord asked me to stop bringing bolts of fabric up the stairs because they scraped the paint.
I apologized and moved the supplies to the garage.
Fallon listened without interrupting.
“Why didn't you ask Dad for money?”
“Because he believed any money he gave me entitled him to another ownership claim.”
She traced a circle on the notebook page.
“That sounds like him.”
The admission surprised both of us.
“I don't want you to have to live like I did,” I said. “But I do want you to know what your life actually costs.”
She nodded.
“I'm trying.”
We spent half an hour organizing her papers by category.
I did not calculate obligations that belonged in Simone's review.
I merely helped Fallon put the pages in order.
Then I made copies of the documents she had brought and returned the originals.
There was no dramatic discovery hidden in the pile.
Just enough uncertain information to justify asking more questions before making commitments.
When she put the notebook back in her bag, her shoulders were less tense.
“I thought you'd tell me I was stupid,” she said.
“I think you made choices without the information you needed. That's something you can change.”
She looked at me for a long moment.
“Would you have helped me if I hadn't been pregnant?”
“I would have helped you find a lawyer. I might not have invited you to stay after what you said at dinner.”
She lowered her eyes.
“That's fair.”
It was the first time she had accepted a boundary without making me defend it.
Late that night, she came to the guest room doorway while I was folding towels.
“Cashin says you want to destroy him.”
“I want him to stop claiming authority he doesn't have and to account for anything he submitted.”
“He says you hate Dad.”
“I am angry with Dad. That isn't the same thing.”
Fallon leaned against the doorframe.
“Would you really let us lose the house?”
“I won't buy a house to cover false financial information. But you can still speak to the seller and lender honestly, before a closing occurs.”
She looked defeated.
I kept folding towels.
“Fallon, if you want a stable place for your baby, start by knowing exactly what you owe and what you can afford.”
“I don't even know what we have.”
“Then that's the first problem to solve.”
Before she called him, we ate breakfast together.
I toasted bread while she sliced an apple.
She asked if I still had the old silver bracelet our grandmother had given me.
It was in my jewelry box.
I wore it occasionally to formal events.
“Grandma used to tell me you were the only one who could sit still long enough to learn a skill,” Fallon said.
“She taught you to sew too.”
“I never finished anything.”
“She showed us both. You preferred drawing.”
Fallon smiled faintly.
“I'd forgotten.”
She used to draw elaborate dresses in the margins of her school notebooks.
Some were beautiful.
Our parents praised her for being pretty but rarely mentioned the drawings.
I wondered how different she might have been if they had encouraged her to build something of her own.
“I kept one of your drawings,” I said.
“You did?”
“It's in an old album. You drew a coat with a bright red lining.”
She laughed.
“That was my dramatic phase.”
“It was a good drawing.”
For several minutes we talked about ordinary childhood memories that did not involve competing for attention.
Then the phone on the table lit up.
Cashin had sent another message demanding she come home.
Fallon took a breath and called him with the date of her legal appointment ready.
I left the room so she could speak privately.
When she came out, she looked shaken but steady.
“He said he'd talk after the appointment,” she told me.
“That's his choice.”
She finished her apple.
“I think I can do this.”
“So do I.”
The next morning she called Cashin with her attorney's office on the calendar.
He demanded that she come home.
She told him she would talk after she had reviewed the papers.
For the first time I could remember, she did not ask our father to decide for her.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Fallon Read the Papers for Herself and Began Asking Questions Our Parents Avoided
The Seven O’Clock Message Revealed What My Father Had Actually Given Away
Part 6 of 12
