Chapter 4 - The First Door She Closed
Beth agreed to meet Natalie at a coffee shop near downtown Naperville.
She looked exhausted before she even sat down.
“I used to do Chris’s bookkeeping,” Beth said.
Natalie knew that.
She had always assumed Beth stopped because siblings working together had become irritating.
“That’s why you quit?”
Beth wrapped both hands around her coffee.
“I quit because he stopped letting me see everything.”
“When?”
“Last summer.”
Natalie thought back.
Last summer was when Chris had started complaining constantly about “ungrateful clients” while still insisting business was strong.
Beth looked toward the window.
“He was moving money around. Personal account, business account, Mom’s account. Every time I asked what he was doing, he said he was smoothing cash flow.”
“Did you know he was taking mine?”
“No.”
Beth answered too quickly.
Natalie noticed.
“You knew something.”
Beth shut her eyes.
“I knew Mom had loaned him money.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were his bookkeeper.”
“He stopped showing me the loan documents.”
Natalie leaned back.
There it was again.
A partial answer opening into something worse.
That afternoon, Natalie met with a family-law attorney.
She did not file for divorce.
Not yet.
She wanted to know what separating finances could legally affect, what obligations she still had on the mortgage, and how to protect herself without accidentally creating a larger mess.
The attorney advised documentation, account separation where lawful, copies of tax returns, credit reports, and no confrontations about evidence she had not yet secured.
Natalie went home while Chris was at a job site.
She packed clothes, medication, her work laptop, tax folders, and the binder containing their mortgage paperwork.
On the kitchen counter, she left one sentence on a notepad.
I’ll communicate about bills in writing.
She moved into a furnished apartment fifteen minutes away.
At 8:06 that evening, Chris finally stopped calling.
At 8:19, he sent a photograph instead.
It showed an envelope Natalie recognized from their tax file.
A lender statement.
The borrower wasn’t Chris.
It was Marsha.
May you like
And handwritten across the top were three words in Chris’s blocky handwriting:
PAST DUE AGAIN.
