Chapter 5 - The Money That Made Mark Harder to Understand
The number was $34,800.
Richard did not believe Susan until she showed him each transfer.
Roof repairs.
A failed boiler during Thanksgiving week.
Emergency payroll when a group cancellation caused a short cash shortfall.
Mark had moved personal money into the lodge operating account four times.
Richard had known about the expenses.
He had not known where part of the emergency cash came from.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Susan gave him a tired look.
“I assumed you knew.”
That sentence was beginning to sound like the theme of Richard’s life.
The deposits complicated everything.
If Mark had simply been trying to take the lodge, Richard could have placed him neatly into the role of greedy son.
But greedy sons did not usually drain their own savings keeping the target of their greed operational.
Richard called Mark.
This time Mark answered.
“You found the transfers.”
Not a question.
“Yes.”
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“When you were ready to hear something without taking it as criticism.”
Richard almost snapped back.
Instead he waited.
Mark continued.
“You think this place runs on memories and pine trees. It doesn’t. The roof was failing. Winter reservations were down. You refused to increase the credit line because you hate debt.”
“So you used your savings without telling me.”
“I thought it was going to be my business one day.”
There it was.
Not theft.
Expectation.
“You thought.”
“You said it for years.”
Richard remembered saying versions of it.
Someday this will be yours.
You’ll run this place when I’m done.
He had never signed over ownership.
But he had made promises casually because he assumed father and son understood each other.
Apparently they had understood very different things.
“Mark, putting money into the lodge doesn’t give you the right to tell people I’m losing my mind.”
“No. Watching you lose track of things gave me that concern.”
“My doctor cleared me.”
“You were better by then.”
Richard paused.
“Then why are you still saying it?”
Silence.
“Mark?”
His son exhaled.
“Because every time I brought up the future, you changed the subject.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting on the phone.”
Mark hung up.
Richard sat with the receiver in his hand.
Susan quietly gathered the records.
Before leaving, she stopped.
“There’s one more thing.”
Richard looked up.
“Mark asked me in December what would happen if you sold the lodge instead of transferring it within the family.”
Richard had never told Mark he was considering a sale.
He had told only two people.
Elaine.
And his longtime attorney.
Somehow Mark knew.
And suddenly Richard had a new question.
May you like
Not whether Mark wanted control.
Why Mark believed he was about to lose everything he had spent years waiting for.
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