I was preparing Easter dinner when my daughter-in-law swept into the kitchen, tasted the sauce, and spat, “You call this cooking? No wonder everyone avoids your food.” My son stood beside her, smirking without saying a word. I quietly removed my apron and smiled. “Then you won’t need my house for your party.” Minutes later, I canceled the celebration, changed the locks, and handed them an eviction notice instead of Easter dessert.

“The bank closes what on Monday?”

Daniel folded the notice and shoved it into his pocket.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

Ruth stepped between us before he could leave the kitchen. “Margaret has a right to know whether her company or property is at risk.”

“It’s my company too,” Daniel snapped.

“No,” I said. “It may become yours someday. That isn’t the same thing.”

After my husband, Frank, died of a stroke three years earlier, I had handed Daniel control of schedules, vendors, and payroll. I still reviewed monthly statements, but grief had made me careless. Whenever a number looked strange, Daniel blamed rising food costs or equipment repairs.

He had also insisted on paying my utilities through the company.

“It’ll simplify everything,” he had said.

Now Ruth asked him to explain the bank.

Daniel looked at Vanessa. She was using a dish towel to remove egg from the floor, not because she felt sorry, but because she needed something to do with her hands.

“We opened a line of credit,” he said. “The expansion cost more than expected.”

The expansion was a second catering kitchen in Milwaukee. Daniel had pushed for it despite Frank’s warning that the company needed larger cash reserves first.

“How much?” I asked.

“Enough that canceling Easter was stupid.”

Ruth’s voice hardened. “How much, Daniel?”

He walked out without answering.

At the Harbor Hotel, my relatives ate without him. I changed clothes in a staff restroom and spent dinner fielding questions about the eggs, the notice, and whether I was “feeling all right.”

That phrase bothered me more than the humiliation.

When I returned home, Ruth was waiting in my study with copies of the company’s recent transactions. The Milwaukee expansion had exceeded its budget by $214,000. Payroll was due Monday. Our primary operating account could not cover it.

Then Ruth placed one invoice in front of me.

Harbor & Pine had paid $86,400 to VWC Interiors for “residential consultation and staging.”

No such work had been performed at either catering facility.