Chapter 5 - DANIEL HAD SIGNED MORE THAN ONE PAPER
The next morning Laura served Daniel and Vanessa formal written notice consistent with the legal advice she had given Margaret.
No instant eviction.
No thirty-minute miracle.
The process would take time.
Daniel called Margaret from upstairs.
“You’re seriously throwing your own son out?”
Margaret sat at the dining table.
“I’m ending an arrangement that stopped working.”
“Because Vanessa lost her temper?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Margaret slid copies of the event contracts across the table.
Daniel stopped.
Vanessa came downstairs behind him.
She saw the June contract.
Then September.
Her face hardened.
“You went through my business?”
“No.”
“The clients gave these to their lawyers after learning you didn’t have authority to promise my house.”
Vanessa folded her arms.
“We weren’t hurting anything.”
“You took deposits.”
“For events.”
“In my home.”
“We live here too.”
“That does not make my property inventory for your company.”
Daniel finally sat.
“Mom, we were going to tell you.”
“When?”
Vanessa answered.
“Once the business was real.”
Margaret almost laughed.
“You took thirteen thousand five hundred dollars.”
“That makes it real.”
Daniel rubbed his forehead.
“Vanessa.”
She snapped:
“Don’t.”
Margaret looked at him.
“How many contracts?”
Silence.
“Daniel.”
He stared at the table.
“Six.”
Margaret felt her chest tighten.
Six.
Vanessa had booked:
two engagement parties,
a retirement dinner,
a bridal shower,
a fifty-person anniversary party,
and the September wedding reception.
Total client deposits:
$23,500.
Margaret whispered:
“You signed them.”
Daniel nodded.
“As property coordinator.”
“You told people you had authority.”
“I thought you’d eventually agree.”
That sentence landed harder than Vanessa’s spoon.
Not:
I thought you had agreed.
Eventually.
Margaret looked at her son.
“So you sold my yes before I gave it.”
Daniel opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Vanessa stepped in.
“Your house sits half empty all year.”
Margaret turned toward her.
“And?”
“We could make money from it.”
“You could?”
“The three of us.”
“You never asked.”
“Because you say no to everything now.”
Margaret almost smiled.
There was the complaint beneath all of it.
She had changed.
May you like
After Frank died, Margaret learned no.
Daniel and Vanessa treated that growth like decline.
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