Chapter 6 - THE MEN WHO KNEW BETTER
Robert came to Megan’s house Sunday afternoon.
Lily met him on the porch.
She did not invite him inside.
Snow had begun falling in dry, powdery flakes.
“I want to see my granddaughter,” he said.
“You will.”
“When?”
“When I stop feeling like every favor from you has a string hidden inside it.”
His face tightened.
“That’s unfair.”
Lily almost laughed.
“You arranged my finances with my husband because I made one bad investment when I was twenty-six.”
“It wasn’t one bad investment.”
“What else?”
“You ignored taxes. You missed health-insurance paperwork. You overdrafted twice.”
“I was twenty-five.”
“You were careless.”
“So you made Nolan my supervisor?”
“No.”
“You told him you thought I couldn’t be trusted.”
Robert looked toward the snow-covered sidewalk.
“I thought marriage meant partnership.”
“So did I.”
That landed.
Robert lowered his voice.
“I never told him to take the money.”
“I know.”
“I never knew his company was in trouble.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t put us in the same category.”
Lily folded her arms beneath her coat.
“You both decided I was the least qualified person in the room to know what was happening in my own life.”
Robert said nothing.
“That’s the category.”
For the first time since the grocery store, he looked older than sixty-one.
He had always seemed indestructible to Lily.
Even at her mother’s funeral, Robert had handled caterers, flowers, paperwork, family calls, and a board meeting without appearing to lose control.
Control was how he loved people.
It was also how he harmed them.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Lily had wanted those words.
They did not repair anything.
“I need time.”
Robert nodded.
Then he reached into his coat and handed her an envelope.
Lily did not take it.
“It’s not money.”
“What is it?”
“My resignation as manager of your partnership interest.”
She looked at him.
“I haven’t submitted it. Cynthia said you should choose your own adviser first.”
That surprised her.
Robert placed the envelope on the porch railing.
“I should have done that years ago.”
He walked away.
Lily watched him reach his car.
Then her phone rang.
It was Cynthia.
“I found something else.”
Not another transfer.
A loan.
Nolan’s company had borrowed $1.4 million from a regional commercial lender nine months earlier.
The borrower file listed Lily as a personal guarantor.
Lily sat down hard on the porch chair.
“I never guaranteed his company.”
May you like
Cynthia’s answer was careful.
“The lender appears to believe you did.”
